Excellent addition to the information we already have about how poorly the Bush administration treats scientists and science.

What hope do future scientists have from an administration which replaces science with "creationism" (pardon, "intelligent design")? How many NIH proposals could have been funded by the monies squandered in Iraq?

The subject matter is very important. There are a couple of issues excluded from this story-many PhD candidates need a post-doc or two to be competitive in industry and many ideas do not come from private industry, they come from the academic world where many post docs do the very time consuming and expensive research that is then utilized by business. Cutting off funding also reduces the number of professors to continue education.

Author claims that reduced NIH funding will kill off US scientific efforts. Author fails to understand that real R&D, that produces real products, is done by private industry, not by government institutions. NIH is a bureaucracy to dole out taxpayer money to academic projects, welfare for post docs.

The importance of funding invasions and religion seems to trump any inclination to fund science. The scion born on third base must think scientists magically appear on third base also.

Describes a devastating crippling of our ability to fund and foster good research. It seems to be another move from the radical Republicans' ideological playbook to destroy governmental institutions in favor of private corporations at best— or nothing, at worst. Science is useful only when it produces product opportunities, anyway, they seem to feel, yet the article shows the need for government seed money and robust programs, a fact well known round the world.

More Bush whitehouse support for evolution?, not.

Very few people realize that most original scientific research is actually done at universities, and then acquired by private companies when the post docs go to work for them. A lot of professors also start up small research firms funded by these government grants, and then sell the patent rights to big firms, such as pharmaceuticals. The universities get a cut of the action, but it is usually a one shot disbursement. The private firms cough up the money for the patenting. Most research done at pharmaceuticals goes to figuring out how to recycle a drug with an expiring patent (look to Prilosec which became Nexium!) with a so called "novel" use for a new patent (say, from ulcers to GERD). A lot more money is spent on ... More »

While I rarely wish to reply to reviews made by respondents to these media reports, I feel compelled to state that the comment by Mr. David Starr (July 24, 1 2007, above on this page) is utterly without merit. Or to put it more bluntly, Mr. Starr doesn't have the slightest idea of what he's talking about. As a chemist and biochemist who has worked both in industry and has retired from a long career in academe, along with regular contacts with government research institutes such as NIH, I may attest from long term experience that the work done at NIH and our universities is the life blood of research and science in the USA, particularly in the biomedical area. It is true that drug research is dominated by private pharmaceutical ... More »