If there's such a great investment on these grants, I wonder why the private investment firms don't invest in this. Why does the government have to do it?
Finally these cuts are retroactive on grant money that has already bee allocated. Funds shared resources: janitors that clean the buildings, professional staff that oversee safety of human and animal subjects, maintenance contracts on expensive machinery (-70 degree c freezers with patient tissue).
So one could argue that the United States should not be in the business of funding science and health for the common good. Or that “indirect” costs need to be reassessed. But radically changing an internationally successful model of health research and training in one day is ill advised.
Because private companies have a short timeline for their investors, they don’t have the patience to see which scientific discoveries will be profitable and which will not. Discoveries can benefit humankind, even if they are not profitable short term. NIH grants also fund medical training.
Comments