This post first appeared on LillyPad, an official blog of Eli Lilly and Company.
For the millions of people nationwide who have diabetes, Dec. 11 looks like just another day on the calendar. But this Thursday is the expiration date for the current continuing resolution – the law that is keeping the government running and, along with it, biomedical research projects investigating new treatments for diabetes and other hormone health conditions.
Research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies support laboratories across the country as scientists search for the next breakthrough to improve the lives of people with diabetes. Promising work to develop the bionic pancreas to control blood glucose levels in people with Type 1 diabetes, for instance, was funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
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NIH’s important work on tomorrow’s cures has been hamstrung by flat funding for more than a decade. Budget cuts have forced the agency to support fewer laboratories with less money. As the cost of performing experiments rises due to inflation, scientists are facing difficult decisions about which ideas to investigate and how to keep labs staffed. There is no way to tell how many medical breakthroughs will never be realized due to the loss of bright young researchers and promising ideas.
The best way to protect future medical advances is for Congress to pass an omnibus funding measure before Dec. 11. A spending bill would preserve needed funding for research to help the 29.1 million Americans with diabetes as well as patients with other endocrine conditions.
In today’s gridlocked political climate, however, many politicians see a new continuing resolution (CR) as the best hope for keeping the government’s doors open. Although a CR would keep the government’s lights on, it comes at a cost. NIH and other agencies that fund biomedical research would be allocated even less than their current budgets under a CR. The de facto cuts will continue to hamper and slow the pace of innovation.
We need to rally everyone who is affected by diabetes as well as their health care providers and care givers to urge Congress to pass a funding bill. It only takes a few moments to send an email to your members of Congress through the Society’s online advocacy center. Speaking up now is the best way to protect the medical breakthroughs of tomorrow.
