University of Maryland researchers are finding ways to minimize the damage of a heart attack using National Institutes of Health grants.
But a proposed $310 million cut to the NIH?s $28 million budget could mean the next young researcher with an idea about curing damaged hearts may not get out of the starting gate, said Dr. Bartley Griffith, chief of cardiac surgery and heart and lung transplantation at U.Md.
“I think we may be looking at fewer than one in 10 projects being funded rather than the one in five funded now,” he said. “Young investigators won?t get funded, and they won?t stay in a research environment for very long without funding.”
Griffith?s team is working on ways to reduce the size of scarring caused during a heart attack, as well as promoting healthy tissue to grow back within the scar. Eventually, he hopes to find ways to minimize the trauma of second heart attacks and keep the heart healthier after a first attack.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., spoke out against the NIH cuts during a conference at the University of Maryland Medical Center on Monday.
“This institution has had a great deal of funding from NIH,” she said. “Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland are the primary beneficiaries of research money in this state.”
She said the consequences of taking even $310 million off that total are “severe” and that she and other senators have worked in recent years to continually increase research money.
Mikulski accused President Bush of cutting research funding “to fund his tax cuts for the super wealthy.”
Maryland Democrat Sen. Catherine Pugh, of Baltimore, said wars in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore the need for cutting-edge work in shock trauma and saving lives. “We?re seeing more money going into the war effort, but we?re seeing less money going into research dollars. Who?s going to care for the troops comingout? We?re talking about 50 more years of health care costs in many cases.”
