Dollars in Millions

Attachment III

National Institutes of Health Appropriations FY 1974-1984 Current and Constant Dollars

Attachment IV A

Attachment IV B

Our

Recommendation

Percentage

Attachment VI

NIH Appropriation as Percentage of Total U.S. Health Spending 1975 - 1984

Attachment VII

WILL WE MISS THESE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES?

The President's FY 1984 funding recommendations provides insufficient resources for the NIH to aggressively pursue many promising avenues of health research. Specifically, some of the research that cannot be accomodated under the proposed allocation entails:

Recent advances in the ability of scientists to analyse
central nervous system development at the molecular level
could revolutionize understanding of the causative elements
in the 60% of mental retardation cases in which no cause
has yet been found.

Amplification and extension of our understanding of the
recently detected and isolated genetic elements, oncogenes,
whose expression within a normal cell leads to malignant
transformation, promises to eventually lead to the

development of rational strategies for the effective treat-
ment and prevention of cancer.

Recently discovered techniques for inducing diabetic-like
retinopathy in dogs promise important insights into the nature
and cause of this devastating complication of human diabetes.
New techniques in virology now offer great promise for solving
many heretofore intractable problems related to the Type I
Herpes simplex virus, including effective chemotherapy of
the disease.

The recent discovery that infection with a new RNA retrovirus
leads to malignant transformation of human T-cell lymphocytes
into leukemic cells offers a remarkable opportunity for advancing
understanding of this leukemia in particular and other leukemias
and malignancies in general.

The study of "simple" nervous systems---as in the sea slug,
the lobster, the leech and the earthworm---has greatly expanded
knowledge of structure-function relationships in nervous
tissue and offer great promise for rapid progress in understanding
complex behavior such as learning in higher forms.

Progress in immunology now presents a rich opportunity to
clarify the nature of autoimmune diseases such as systemic
lupus erythematosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome
and polyarteritis, as well as to advance their treatment and
prevention.

Recent advances in pharmacology, physiology, and biochemistry
coupled with the increased interest of molecular biologists in
studying the specific cellular receptors that may control the
action of various hormones and other substances implicated in
the regulation of blood pressure have provided exciting
approaches to studies of the causes of hypertension.