AEGiS-GMHC: WASHINGTON WATCH: $78 Million Increase Requested for AIDS Research

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1994. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

WASHINGTON WATCH: $78 Million Increase Requested for AIDS Research

Gay Men's Health Crisis: Treatment Issues, Volume 8 no. 3 - May, 1994
Derek Hodel

President Clinton's budget request for fiscal year 1995, which begins this October, was formally presented to Congress in January. As always, the administration claimed that the budget is a difficult balancing act among competing needs, ever growing entitlement programs and a Congressional mandate to lower the federal deficit. Clinton nonetheless proposed increases in a number of AIDS programs - with the glaring exception of prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which received no increase. Among the increases was a $78 million boost in AIDS research funding.

Perhaps most significantly, the Clinton budget asks that the consolidated AIDS research budget request be preserved in the final congressionally approved budget as a single line item appropriation. This move is a marked departure from usual practice and is another strong signal of how seriously the administration views the authority of the OAR. (The consolidated OAR appropriation, at $1.379 billion, exceeds every account at the NIH except for the NCI.)

But the $78 million in new research funding amounts to only six percent increase - barely above the biomedical inflation rate and in sharp contrast to the $550 million increase called for in the NIH professional judgment budget. The so- called PJ budget reflects the amount required to fully fund research to exploit available scientific opportunities. The modest AIDS increase, however, comes in the context of a generally flat request for virtually all other NIH programs. In addition to AIDS, only breast cancer research, the Human Genome Project, and various high-performance computer projects received an increase over their current funding levels.

Testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor/HHS/Education and Related Agencies, which has jurisdiction over NIH spending, Varmus argued that money spent on AIDS research provided a wise investment, and that part of the logic behind "earmarking" funding for particular programs rested on a need to insure to the public that high priority concerns were being addressed. Varmus is scheduled to testify at House hearings on April 12 to 15. In the House, which takes a first pass at the President's budget, prospects for AIDS funding seem fair, although few expect any significant increases beyond the President's request.

(Derek Hodel is the treatment issues director at the AIDS Action Council, a Washington, DC-based lobbying organization representing nearly 1,000 AIDS service and advocacy organizations nationwide)

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