Gov't. shutdown creates difficult issues at NIH

The National Institutes of Health is trying to cope with the effects of the government shutdown on patients and medical research. 

The Associated Press: NIH Admits A Dozen Critically Ill Despite Shutdown
A few desperately ill patients have managed to get into clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health's famed hospital, even though the government's partial shutdown has others being turned away, the agency said Wednesday. Normally, about 200 new patients every week enroll in studies at the NIH's research-only hospital, often referred to as the "house of hope" because so many of those people have failed standard treatments (Neergaard, 10/9).

NPR: Shutdown Imperils Costly Lab Mice, Years Of Research
The government shutdown is likely to mean an early death for thousands of mice used in research on diseases such as diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's. Federal research centers including the National Institutes of Health will have to kill some mice to avoid overcrowding, researchers say. Others will die because it is impossible to maintain certain lines of genetically altered mice without constant monitoring by scientists. And most federal scientists have been banned from their own labs since Oct. 1 (Hamilton, 10/10).