Washington

On the rise: the past five years have seen funding flood into the National Institutes of Health.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is set to complete a five-year spurt of growth next year, with its funding rising to an eye-popping $27.3 billion in the fiscal year 2003.

US health secretary Tommy Thompson announced on 26 January that President George W. Bush will request a $3.7-billion increase for the biomedical research agency in his 4 February budget proposal. This would fulfil a drive initiated in Congress — and endorsed by Bush in his election campaign — to double in five years the NIH budget from its 1998 level of $13.6 billion.

The drive has been led by patient advocacy groups, science lobby groups including Research!America, and legislators such as John Porter, the former chair of the House appropriations subcommittee in charge of health spending, who retired from Congress in 2000. The success of the effort has been watched enviously by scientists in other disciplines and in other countries.

Congress is widely expected to approve the president's request when it completes the 2003 budget this summer. Bush is asking for $5.5 billion next year for cancer research, up from $4.9 billion this year; and $1.5 billion for research related to bioterrorism — five times this year's expenditure. Most of the new bioterrorism money will go to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Rumours that NIAID director Anthony Fauci is about to be appointed to the vacant directorship of the NIH reached a new intensity ahead of Bush's State of the Union address to Congress on 29 January.

Fauci would not comment on the rumours, but says that his institute would spend the bioterrorism money on basic research, drug and vaccine discovery, clinical research and construction of new facilities.

With two-fifths of the new money going to the NIAID, Bush's proposal will see the other 26 NIH institutes enjoying somewhat smaller increases than in recent years. But Fauci pledges that the expansion of bioterrorism funds would also boost research on diseases such as cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

Jordan Cohen, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, welcomes the funding announcement. Looking ahead, he says: “It's probably not reasonable to expect funding to grow at exactly the same rate it has, but meeting the scientific opportunities that exist is going to require continued investment.”

April Burke of Lewis-Burke Associates, a lobbying group that works with universities and research organizations, says: “There's a lot of money going to cancer and bioterrorism, but the important thing is that the administration is supporting the overall increase of the NIH, and that's excellent.”