A big boost in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the face of budget freezes and cutbacks at other American research agencies has some scientists and politicians crying foul over President George Bush's 2002 budget proposal. The plan calls for a 13% increase for NIH and cuts or freezes for nearly every other non-defense R&D program.

Since 1998, the NIH budget has doubled while annual budgets for non-clinical science programs have seen far smaller increases, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). “I would not necessarily say that NIH is getting too much, but I do think that the government needs to maintain a balance,” says J. David Litster, the Dean for Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The debate over R&D spending priorities has been bubbling up in Washington for several years. But until this year, funding for programs like the National Science Foundation—while not keeping pace with NIH—continued to rise. The parallel rise kept scientists from breaking ranks, but Bush's first budget actually calls for cuts to NSF funding, and non-life scientists are starting to complain.

At a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee last month, critics of the plan charged that politics, not policy, is driving the government's R&D spending priorities. Reportedly, politicians find that support for medical-research funding wins more favor with voters than funding for physics for example. But as Litster points out, cuts in other areas of R&D might limit medical advances. For example, he says, the sequencing of the human genome would have been impossible without innovative computer technology.

“The biomedical lobby is very powerful and it has interests behind it that are better connected to the political process,” says Al Teich, AAAS director of science policy. “They certainly do know how to work the system. But the community will soon face competition in the form of the new Alliance for Science and Technology Research in America. The slowly growing industry/academic advocacy group plans to seek more funding not just for NSF but also for other agency R&D budgets, including the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The discussion over which if any area of science should suffer while the NIH benefits is expected to intensify as the final budget as it is hashed out over the next few months. Details of the plans for NIH expenditure can be seen at http://www4.od.nih.gov/officeofbudget/press2002.pdf