Trump budget seeks huge cuts to disease prevention and medical research departments

[Homerboy]

I think spending on the NIH is a noble cause but they need to make due with what we can afford to give them and that's it.

Just curious if you apply the same logic to all gov't agencies.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Oh my goodness, those doctors and scientists have to get by with only TWENTY SIX BILLION DOLLARS for the next 12 months.

The horror.

you are such a fucking poseur.

 

[fskimospy]

Yes, I have seen people die from this including close friends and relatives. Your post implies that I was making light of that, which is stupid. If you stop and think about the trillions the public and private sector have spent on research so far - no one could argue and keep a straight face that we don't spend (or haven't spent) enough on it. People are going to die whether we spend a dollar or a dime next fiscal year so please, spare me the drama.

I think spending on the NIH is a noble cause but they need to make due with what we can afford to give them and that's it.

How is 'we're all going to die someday anyway' a good reason not to learn more about how to keep people alive now?

And yes, everyone can argue we haven't spent enough. It's one of the largest threats facing everyone alive today and sooner or later it's coming for most of us. I don't know about you but I want to have the best chance I can get when/if it comes back for me.

 

[khon]

Yes, I have seen people die from this including close friends and relatives. Your post implies that I was making light of that, which is stupid. If you stop and think about the trillions the public and private sector have spent on research so far - no one could argue and keep a straight face that we don't spend (or haven't spent) enough on it. People are going to die whether we spend a dollar or a dime next fiscal year so please, spare me the drama.

I think spending on the NIH is a noble cause but they need to make due with what we can afford to give them and that's it.

Actually I can argue that we haven't spent enough, and it's pretty damn easy. More spending on medical research would save a lot of lives, more spending on the military doesn't, so we should be cutting the military to spend on more on medical research, not the other way around.

It's not a matter of whether or not we can afford it, these cuts aren't being made because of the deficit, they are being made because Trump thinks buying new fighter jets/aircraft carriers is more important that treating diseases, and I think he's entirely wrong about that.

 

[hal2kilo]

Actually I can argue that we haven't spent enough, and it's pretty damn easy. More spending on medical research would save a lot of lives, more spending on the military doesn't, so we should be cutting the military to spend on more on medical research, not the other way around.

It's not a matter of whether or not we can afford it, these cuts aren't being made because of the deficit, they are being made because Trump thinks buying new fighter jets/aircraft carriers is more important that treating diseases, and I think he's entirely wrong about that.

Unless there's a cure for Alzheimer's and cancer out there that I'm not aware of then, no, we aren't spending nearly enough. Alzhemer' will drive this country's Medicare into bankruptcy. On the same subject, any of you people have a retarded brother in group home?

 

[Moonbeam]

Unless there's a cure for Alzheimer's and cancer out there that I'm not aware of then, no, we aren't spending nearly enough. Alzhemer' will drive this country's Medicare into bankruptcy. On the same subject, any of you people have a retarded brother in group home?

Yes, if P&N is a group home. If that counts, quite a number of them, actually.

 

[JMC2000]

How is 'we're all going to die someday anyway' a good reason not to learn more about how to keep people alive now?

And yes, everyone can argue we haven't spent enough. It's one of the largest threats facing everyone alive today and sooner or later it's coming for most of us. I don't know about you but I want to have the best chance I can get when/if it comes back for me.

Ya know...

If we're all going to die some day, in addition to not spending money on medical research, why don't we just scrap the entire healthcare system, the entire FDA, USDA, DHHS, Homeland Security, and all other agencies tasked with protecting people and/or their health?

We'll save TRILLIONS!

Felix has a good idea, but he didn't go far enough.

#MAGAbylettingeveryonenotrichdie

/s

 

[fskimospy]

Ya know...

If we're all going to die some day, in addition to not spending money on medical research, why don't we just scrap the entire healthcare system, the entire FDA, USDA, DHHS, Homeland Security, and all other agencies tasked with protecting people and/or their health?

We'll save TRILLIONS!

Felix has a good idea, but he didn't go far enough.

#MAGAbylettingeveryonenotrichdie

/s

His argument reminds me of this Onion article:

http://www.theonion.com/article/world-death-rate-holding-steady-at-100-percent-1670

World Death Rate Holding Steady At 100 Percent

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—World Health Organization officials expressed disappointment Monday at the group's finding that, despite the enormous efforts of doctors, rescue workers and other medical professionals worldwide, the global death rate remains constant at 100 percent.

 

[FelixDeCat]

You are loved by the hidden one within you.

Good to know.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Just curious if you apply the same logic to all gov't agencies.

I don't see why not, however, I think Bronco went too far gutting NASA. We need to explore space if we are to one day colonize nearby star systems and have a defense fleet ready to meet intergalactic threats (assuming we find any).

 

[FelixDeCat]

How is 'we're all going to die someday anyway' a good reason not to learn more about how to keep people alive now?

And yes, everyone can argue we haven't spent enough. It's one of the largest threats facing everyone alive today and sooner or later it's coming for most of us. I don't know about you but I want to have the best chance I can get when/if it comes back for me.

Im just saying no matter how much we spend we can only achieve what is possible with available resources both intellectual and material. The rest is just most likely wasted.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Actually I can argue that we haven't spent enough, and it's pretty damn easy. More spending on medical research would save a lot of lives, more spending on the military doesn't, so we should be cutting the military to spend on more on medical research, not the other way around.

It's not a matter of whether or not we can afford it, these cuts aren't being made because of the deficit, they are being made because Trump thinks buying new fighter jets/aircraft carriers is more important that treating diseases, and I think he's entirely wrong about that.

Saving lives and ending them in the course of military conflict are philosophical points of view and must be equally balanced. If we could eradicate terrorism for the same $37B the NIH gets for the next 12 months I would argue we would save more lives by ending terrorist lives as soon as possible.

That being said, we spend entirely too much on military spending.

 

[Jhhnn]

Im just saying no matter how much we spend we can only achieve what is possible with available resources both intellectual and material. The rest is just most likely wasted.

So we should just waste the money burying death in the desert or blowing up people on the other side of the world. Or we can let billionaires keep an even bigger share, a whole different kind of waste.

 

[FelixDeCat]

It's do, not due.

And why can't we, as a country, afford it? Naaaa.....gotta spend more on the world's largest military to make it even larger. Gotta cut taxes for the wealthiest in this country because.....reasons.

I too agree that we should be cutting military spending, not increasing it. It makes my head hurt to think how much money we are throwing away on garbage weapons systems that don't even work.

 

[fskimospy]

Saving lives and ending them in the course of military conflict are philosophical points of view and must be equally balanced. If we could eradicate terrorism for the same $37B the NIH gets for the next 12 months I would argue we would save more lives by ending terrorist lives as soon as possible.

That being said, we spend entirely too much on military spending.

That's almost certainly untrue. Depending on how you classify a terrorist attack somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people die every year from them. Cancer alone caused 8.8 MILLION deaths in 2015.

So in short, yearly terrorism deaths represent 0.39% of cancer deaths. If we can find treatments that lower cancer mortality by 0.5% next year with that money we've already saved drastically more lives.

 

[sandorski]

Spending 1/20th the Budget to blow people to bits on how to keep people alive/well is too much!

 

[hal2kilo]

I don't see why not, however, I think Bronco went too far gutting NASA. We need to explore space if we are to one day colonize nearby star systems and have a defense fleet ready to meet intergalactic threats (assuming we find any).

Space isn't going away. The sun still has about 3 billion more good years. I think we can slightly postpone the exit of our dying solar system for even a milenia if it means fixing the stuff that needs to be fixed on our planet.

 

[Moonbeam]

Im just saying no matter how much we spend we can only achieve what is possible with available resources both intellectual and material. The rest is just most likely wasted.

What my experience with self examination (of my ego) tells me is that it wants to assume it knows where the point beyond which most is just wasted is. I actually have no idea. My opinions of this kind strike me as mostly emotional and have no real data on which to make a rational assessment. Even how I see data is based on how my ego has prioritized my desires based often on unconscious needs. As a result, I have become more modest in my faith in what I automatically tend to want to believe. I had to break a lot of the rules I was taught to get to that point but I think it was worth it.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Space isn't going away. The sun still has about 3 billion more good years. I think we can slightly postpone the exit of our dying solar system for even a milenia if it means fixing the stuff that needs to be fixed on our planet.

I would be wholeheartedly on board with you with if I did not know the advancements made in sending men to mars also provides tangible benefits to all mankind than merely NIH spending.

I should also mention that the sad truth is private pharmaceutical research is mostly geared toward therapies and not cures. There is simply much more money keeping people alive but diseased so they can pay $75,000+ on your medicine. Whereas a one time "cure" might only provide so much revenue, certainly nothing most biotechnology investors are interested in.

 

[Moonbeam]

I would be wholeheartedly on board with you with if I did not know the advancements made in sending men to mars also provides tangible benefits to all mankind than merely NIH spending.

I should also mention that the sad truth is private pharmaceutical research is mostly geared toward therapies and not cures. There is simply much more money keeping people alive but diseased so they can pay $75,000+ on your medicine. Whereas a one time "cure" might only provide so much revenue, certainly nothing most biotechnology investors are interested in.

That is one reason government funding of research is necessary. Only governments will pay to research and cure diseases the poor have no money to pay for cures.

 

[Geekbabe]

Is that going to kill off his elderly idiot base faster?

I am 60, not an idiot & I voted for HRC

 

[Geekbabe]

Yes, I have seen people die from this including close friends and relatives. Your post implies that I was making light of that, which is stupid. If you stop and think about the trillions the public and private sector have spent on research so far - no one could argue and keep a straight face that we don't spend (or haven't spent) enough on it. People are going to die whether we spend a dollar or a dime next fiscal year so please, spare me the drama.

I think spending on the NIH is a noble cause but they need to make due with what we can afford to give them and that's it.

I am a person living with stage IV cancer for over two years thanks to the tireless efforts of researchers. I don't just live, I continue to work a job & enjoy my family. NIH does important work, when my current drug regimen stops working NIH clinical trials will be my next stop.

All the research, all the brave men & women willing to participate in clinical trials are the base of many treatments yet to come. Cutting NIH so deeply just as Immunotherapy has started showing real promise in the war against cancer is criminal IMHO. This research might not benefit me much now but it will benefit the legions of cancer patients who come after me.

We have to think of those who come after us & fund medical research.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Cut taxes to zero, and you effectively don't have a gov't any more. Is that the plan?

I had a theory several years ago about the unnecessary war in Iraq.

It just follows the guns versus butter logic -- an analogy which should be widely familiar, even for folks who didn't take Freshman or Sophomore Economics 1A/1B. Whether it was a conscious conspiracy or an unspoken group-think idea, the war spending would claim a bigger share of a shrinking pie and drown domestic spending in a bathtub.

Consider that this tug-of-war of states-rights in federalism has continued since the Civil War. But if 50% of the public wants certain things, and if 50% somehow thinks they don't (even if blue states subsidize federal spending in most of the red states), there must either be compromise or chaos. The "Mixed Economy" has sustained us since before Roosevelt. Federal dollars are spent on various things; people in defense, education, law enforcement, and other areas are paid; they spend money on junk-food and new cars; consumption increases; people are employed; the economy moves forward.

To deny this is to deny history. But the "insurgents" want to overturn the cart in one presidential term that took a hundred years to create, under the leadership of Americans living and dead, with the consent or even the demand of citizens living and dead.

It also bothers me that with every new revelation day after day, nobody who supported Trump strongly is likely to display regret or admit the mistake. They will say that the rabid media is persecuting Trump. They have "alternative facts" -- which are cherry-picked facts to support a delusional world-view. They can't handle "all the facts." And since they are supreme as voters, they are right because it was a "democratic decision."

The proof of the pudding will slowly emerge as a statistic describing the number of people hurt by the Trump administration. Eventually -- that tally may include just about everyone. Who can say?

 

[edcoolio]

Having worked extensively in BioTech and pure Pharma for many years, I can confidently say this:

NIH Grants are about 20% fluff scam nonsense to keep researchers employed and overpaid to publish papers where the outcome is already known, so it is of no value to anyone. The butter of the scientists who complain the loudest at any cuts and work for universities or big pharma tend to live here.

Another 20% is spent in support of the 20% listed above. This tends to be in the form of new purchases and personnel justification.

Associate researchers with pipettes, Flow Cytometry support, secretaries, I.T. support, I.T. equipment, HVAC, executive percentage compensation, financial systems, accounting support. The list goes on and on. Lots of brand new gaming laptops and remote-home workstations with overpowered gaming cards spec'd out by researchers who have new equipment listed on their NIH grants.

That leaves a solid 60% which is spent focusing on the project at hand. What was always interesting to me was that these companies always dumped a fair portion of cash into the pot for these projects and applied for NIH matching funds. Why? It is these "good" projects which support their potential patents for the next blockbuster... of which the government will get back only normal corporate taxes. The best scientists work here.

Do with this information what you will.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I am a person living with stage IV cancer for over two years thanks to the tireless efforts of researchers. I don't just live, I continue to work a job & enjoy my family. NIH does important work, when my current drug regimen stops working NIH clinical trials will be my next stop.

All the research, all the brave men & women willing to participate in clinical trials are the base of many treatments yet to come. Cutting NIH so deeply just as Immunotherapy has started showing real promise in the war against cancer is criminal IMHO. This research might not benefit me much now but it will benefit the legions of cancer patients who come after me.

We have to think of those who come after us & fund medical research.

I am sorry to hear about this. I too lived with an "incurable" disease for nearly 20 years that took a heavy toll on my life until I finally had surgery to remove that last half of my digestive system from the large intestine to the very end. The "cure" almost killed me I might add, but I made it. Seven years later things are about as normal as they were before this ever happened beginning around 1990 and ending in 2010, but the price was pretty high about $160,000.

I am a big fan of all the Star Trek series and it is nice to think that one day we might be able to cure nearly every imaginable disease like they do in the show. In the meantime I hope they are able to find a treatment for you that finally brings about remission if possible. Our most recent loss an uncle to colon cancer, something that would most certainly have gotten me by now if it were not for the surgery.

God bless.