On June 14, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) shared her framework for National Institutes of Health (NIH) reform. Chair Rodgers has expressed her desire to pass NIH legislation before retiring from Congress at the end of 2024. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NIH has endorsed the plan.
The biggest recommendation is to reconfigure the 27 current institutes and centers into 15. The document has very little information about any process or criteria for how Chair Rodgers determined the proposed changes. Several ICs remain intact or are renamed. The framework proposes changing the National Institutes of Aging to the National Institute on Dementia and combining the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to the National Institute for Disability Related Research. It is unclear if research on healthy and/or typical aging or development would be included in those missions.
Other key recommendations include:
- Term limits for institute directors – 5-year term renewable once
- Biennial report to eliminate silos – using a life stage approach
- Address misconduct and expect accountability
- Reexamine and demand transparency of indirect costs
- Limits on number of grants for individual PI
- Ensure Appropriate Oversight of Animal Research
In the Senate, Bill Cassidy (R–LA), ranking member of the Senate health committee, is also working on NIH reauthorization, to which FABBS submitted comments. And Representatives Diana DeGette (D–CO) and Larry Bucshon (R–IN) have already invited community input to inform reauthorization of the 21st Century Cures Act, a 2016 law that provided new funding to NIH and reauthorized some of its programs.
FABBS appreciates and shares the commitment to supporting an impactful and efficient NIH, recognizing opportunities for improvement and the consequences of inconsistent approaches to standing up new institutes and centers. In addition, FABBS welcomes the focus on ‘whole individuals and all populations across the entire lifespan.’
FABBS is drafting feedback to submit by the August 16 deadline and encourages others to do so as well to NIHReform@mail.house.gov.
