With 2014 budget process beginning, NIH cuts decried

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., is joined by executives from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins to call for an end to sequestration cuts of medical research budgets.

Baltimore Sun: Federal Medical Research Cuts Decried At Hopkins
The head of the nation's medical research agency and leaders of Johns Hopkins hospital and medical school warned Monday that progress in fighting diseases could be slowed, jobs lost and scientists driven overseas unless across-the-board federal funding cuts are reversed. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, joined Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Hopkins executives and a stroke survivor at Hopkins' Children's Center to appeal for restoration of $1.5 billion in NIH funding cuts as part of the budget "sequester" approved last winter by Congress (Wheeler, 7/8).

Medpage Today: Federal Research $$$ On Senate Agenda This Week
Advocates of robust funding for biomedical research have a busy week ahead of them in their efforts to restore the budget for the National Institutes of Health. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, reiterated her feelings on restoring nearly $1.5 billion in automatic spending cuts the NIH suffered earlier this year as a result of the sequester on federal spending. … The move has been criticized because its across-the-board nature gives no discretion to traditionally bipartisan work like NIH research. The research agency went from more than $30 billion in annual funding to roughly $28.5 billion. The result: roughly 700 grants lost funding, [NIH Director Francis] Collins said Monday (Pittman, 7/8).