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Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12), a member of the House Budget Committee, delivered the keynote address at University of Michigan’s Division of Hematology/Oncology annual awards dinner, calling on Congress to stop playing politics with critical medical research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other government institutions are critical to making progress on finding treatments and cures for devastating diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s and many others, and funding has actually fallen behind in real dollars. The reality is, when adjusted for inflation NIH funding in Fiscal Year 2015 is 22 percent lower than Fiscal Year 2003, and if Congress does not act, these cuts will only get worse.

Congresswoman Dingell, a lifelong advocate for medical research, who is the founder and past chair of both the National Women’s Health Resource Center and the Children’s Inn at the NIH, observed to those gathered that we have a crisis in this country.

“Every dollar we cut from the NIH has a negative impact across the country,” said Dingell. “We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these programs even further. Having robust funding for NIH is a win for researchers, a win for patients, a win for students, and most importantly a win for the American people.”

Dingell discussed a number of options to help increase the budget for NIH and other critical research institutions, including a plan proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT) to make NIH exempt from the mandatory budget caps that are a part of sequestration. Other options include making funding for NIH mandatory, which would divorce it from politics and separate it from the annual appropriations process in Congress, or providing funding for the agency on a two or three year basis to give researchers more certainty to plan for the future.

“All of these ideas must be considered if we are to achieve a common goal: getting research funding back to adequate levels so we can make progress on finding cures for the most devastating diseases we face,” said Dingell. “I will work as hard as I possibly can with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make progress on this critical goal.”

Allocating federal dollars to research is also a wise investment in the economy. Every $1 million that NIH invests in research generates more than $2 million in economic activity, and every research grant leads to 7 new jobs being created.

Dingell also told the group that while she thinks President Obama’s budget is a good blueprint for creating jobs and growing the middle class, she has serious concerns about his proposal to reduce funding for graduate medical education.

“We’re already facing a looming shortage of primary care physicians, and I think this would be the wrong approach to take,” said Dingell. “I intend to work for full funding of GME programs that have been proven to be very successful in supporting teaching institutions like yours.”