San Diego County leaders urge Congress to reverse NIH cuts, citing threat to health, jobs

Headquarters of the National Institutes of Medical in Maryland Photo courtesy of NIH San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer joined academic leaders and others Monday to ask Congress to reconsider cuts to the federal National Institutes of Robustness Lawson-Remer the acting chair of the Board of Supervisors on Monday broadcasted a resolution she will bring before the board on June urging the federal authorities to reconsider a proposed cut in NIH funding These cuts could gut cancer research cancel clinical trials and push promising young scientists out of the field she explained San Diego leads the nation in life sciences we ve spent decades building this infrastructure We cannot afford to recklessly dismantle it The cuts are part of an effort by President Donald Trump s administration to make the executive more efficient but local opponents say it will be disastrous for San Diego County s billion life sciences sector The NIH laid off hundreds of staff earlier this month Cuts to NIH funding disrupt clinical trials and biomedical discoveries stall critical scientific breakthroughs and undermine the future scientific workforce needed to address the subsequent day s largest part pressing challenges reported Dr Corinne Peek-Asa vice chancellor for research at UC San Diego This erosion puts America s leadership in innovation at jeopardy and directly impacts the medical jobs and future treatments that San Diegans count on UC San Diego joins partners across the region in urging the federal authorities to protect these critical investments in scientific discovery In March Dr Jayanta Bhattacharya took over the NIH as director following Senate confirmation He explained he was seeking to tackle chronic condition in his new role Chronic diseases such as cancer heart illness diabetes and obesity continue to cause poor wellbeing outcomes in every neighborhood across the United States he announced Novel biomedical discoveries that enhance robustness and lengthen life are more vital than ever to our country s future As NIH Director I will build on the agency s long and illustrious history of supporting breakthroughs in biology and medicine by fostering gold-standard research and innovation to address the chronic illness predicament Between the end of February and early April the federal governing body ended around NIH grants worth billion about of the federal agency s annual operating budget according to research published in the Journal of the American Diagnostic Association According to Lawson-Remer s office the proposed reduction in NIH funding could outcome in over million in lost economic activity and put more than local jobs at pitfall across San Diego s globally recognized research and biotech ecosystem The proposed cuts to NIH funding will have devastating consequences for San Diego s financial sector but more importantly for the fitness of our region the nation and the world revealed Dr Kurt Marek chief business officer at Sanford Burnham Prebys and a former NIH initiative director The NIH has been incredibly thriving for years eradicating diseases like polio reducing millions of deaths from cancer and powering U S innovation and leadership These current and proposed cuts are arbitrary and capricious but their impacts are real for our wellness and our market system San Diego is the third-largest recipient of NIH funding in the country a comment from Lawson-Remer s office read This fight is about protecting the healthcare breakthroughs our families depend on the jobs our market system relies on and the future that San Diego is helping to build stated Lawson-Remer We cannot stay quiet while NIH funding is on the chopping block not when the cost could be measured in lives jobs and years of research lost