Health Budget: U.S. Federal Government FY 2008

SUMMARY OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION FY’ 08 HEALTH BUDGET

On February 5, 2007, the President Bush released his FY ’08 Budget. This budget would increase discretionary spending to $929.8 billion, an increase of $57 billion or 6.5%. But fully $53.5 billion of the total increase will go to security programs – defense, homeland security, and international affairs. Domestic discretionary programs, such as health care and education, will grow by only 1%, or $3.5 billion. Below is a brief summary of the President’s FY ’08 proposals for health programs of interest to the academic medical community.

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH – TOTAL FUNDING: $29.8 BILLION, a cut of 1.7% or $511 million below the FY 07 Continuing Resolution that is currently funding federal programs. The President’s Budget includes a $300 million transfer from NIH to the Global AIDS fund, reducing the available total for NIH to $28.321 billion. The cut from FY ’07 is further reduced when the biomedical inflator, expected to be above 3%, is factored in.

• Individual Institutes: except for the NIAID, which would receive a $210 million increase, no other institute would receive more than a $7 million increase.
• The NIH Director - increase of $38 million.
• Road Map for Medical Research – $486 million, a 17% increase. The Road map includes interdisciplinary research involving different Institutes.
• Grant Support – the Administration emphasized in its announcement that despite the overall cut for NIH, the budget would allow funding for 10% more new grants than in 2006. This will translate to 10,188 new grants and competitive renewals, indicating an increase close to the 10,411 new grants funded in 2003, the final year of the doubling of the NIH budget process. The Administration explained that it is able to provide these grant increases because currently funded multi-year grants will not receive inflationary increases. The grant success rate will remain at about 20%, or about 1 in 5 grants (by comparison, in 2001, the rate was 1 in 3).
• National Research Service Awards – 17,520 training positions supported.
• Pathways to Independence - $31 million, doubled from previous year for these five-year research grants for post-doctoral researchers.
• National Children’s Study – 0 funding. This program, which is intended
  to track 100,000 children from birth to adulthood, with special attention to autism, diabetes and other childhood diseases, is expected to cost $2.7 billion and was considered too expensive, in light of other priorities.
• Executive Level I Salaries – $168,000, by reducing NIH, SAMHSA, and AHRQ extramural Level I grant salaries to ’07 Executive Level II. The current Executive Level I rate is $186,600.

Other health and science programs:

• Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs - $2.2 billion, an increase of $95 million.
• Health Professions Training - $10 million, a cut of $135 million that eliminates all Title VII programs but Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students.
• Title VII Student Loan Rescissions – approximately $105 million cut, achieved by the Administration recalling the federal portion of Title VII and VIII student loans programs that include Health Professions Student Loan, Loans for Disadvantaged Students, Primary Care Loans, and Nursing Student Loans. Institutions would be required to return all uncommitted loan funds, amounting to approximately $4 million per institution.
• National Health Service Corps - $116 million, a $7.2% decrease from ’07. $31 million would come from the NHSC field program, and $85 million from the NHSC recruitment appropriations, which provides scholarship and loan repayment awards.
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) - $330 million, an increase of $11 million. Patient safety would receive $34 million, Personalized Health Care Initiative $15 million, and health information technology $45 million, including $26 million for the Ambulatory Patient Safety Program.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): would receive $5.8 billion, a 5.9% cut. $93 million of this total would be committed to increased testing for HIV/AIDS among high-risk populations; $138 million, a $1 million cut from FY ’06, would go towards injury prevention and control; and public health research would receive $31million. The Preventive Services Block Grant, funded at $99 million in FY ’06, would be eliminated. The National Center for Health Statistics would receive $109 million, derived from transfers from other agencies.
• Bioterrorism Preparedness: The Health Research Services Administration (HRSA) would receive level funding at $474 million for preparedness, but its training and curriculum development programs would be cut 43% to $ 9 million.
  CDC biodefense would total $1.7 billion, including $593 million for the Strategic National Stockpile, $3 million for botulinum toxin research, $824 for state and local preparedness, and $136 for CDC’s own preparedness capacity.
  NIH would receive $1.9 billion for biodefense.
• Veterans Administration:
  VA Research would receive a total of $414 million, a decrease of $13 million, or 3.0% below FY ’06. The VA estimates that this funding will support 2,045 research projects, - 66, or 3.2% below FY ’06. The total funding would support:
  Medical and Prosthetics Research funded at $399 million, 3.2% below FY’ 06;
  Research IT, the VA’s contribution to the new national IT Fund, funded at $15 million, $50 thousand more than last year.
  VA Medical Care: would receive $33.075 billion, a 12.1 % increase. The Administration is depending on legislation that would increase veterans’ enrollment fees and pharmacy co-pays to generate additional funds (but also decrease veterans’ enrollment).
• National Science Foundation: would receive a 7.9% increase for a total of $6.020 billion. This increase is part of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative, aimed at strengthening the country’s research and development in the physical sciences. Of the overall total, NSF Research – would receive $4.666 billion (a 7.7% increase).
  
  

Abstract Submission: American College of Epidemiology 2007 Annual Meeting

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR ACE 2007

The abstract deadline for submission to the 2007 annual meeting of the American College of Epidemiology has been extended to May 1st, 2007. Abstracts should be submitted electronically to info@acepidemiology.org.

The American College of Epidemiology invites the submission of abstracts for consideration for poster presentations. Poster presentations provide an opportunity for participants in the ACE annual meeting to hare their work with interested colleagues in an informal, relaxed setting. Poster sessions are prominently scheduled during the meeting. Poster sessions will include poster discussion groups and oral presentations by some authors. Your abstract will be published in the program.

For further information on submission guidelines, visit: http://www.acepidemiology2.org/meetings/2007Miami/2007AMCallforAbstracts.asp

There will be five student travel awards, $1000 each, given to graduate students or post-doctoral trainees who completed their research as graduate students. Don't miss this opportunity to share your research with your colleagues and to attend the annual meeting of the American College of Epidemiology in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from September 15-18, 2007.

Society for Epidemiologic Research- Student Caucus Executive Council leadership - Call for self-nominations of officers

Society for Epidemiologic Research Student Caucus leadership - Call for self-nominations

***UPDATE: The call for self-nominations deadline for positions on the SER-SC executive council has been extended until April 20th 2007***

Dear epidemiology student and post-doctoral trainees:

The SER-SC is gearing up to the 2007 SER Annual Meeting where the SER Student Caucus SER-SC will begin its fourth year. SER-SC is a student organization (additionally open to post-docs, trainees, and fellows) and and student-initiated program focused on opening new possibilities for addressing student members' professional needs.

A call for self-nomination for officers and committee chairs for the SER-SC
executive council: Self-nominations - a 250-word personal statement – will be accepted from March 31, 2007 to April 20, 2007. Officers must be either current SER dues-paying student members, or a student who will become an SER member by the annual meeting.

Position descriptions, procedures for self-nomination and an election time line are described below. The newly elected leadership will assume responsibilities immediately following the Annual Meeting held this year in Boston, MA and will be effective during the June 2007-June 2008 year. The incoming president elect and other officers are strongly encouraged to attend the annual meeting. For more information on the annual meeting and student room-share options go to http://www.epiresearch.org.

Please direct specific questions to the current SER-SC nominations committee chair Vasanti Malik at vmalik@hsph.harvard.edu. Please write "nominations" in the e-mail subject line.

Thanks,
Vasanti Malik—SER-SC Nominations Chair

For more information about SER-SC please visit:
http://www.epiresearch.org/students/studentinfo.php

To become a Student Member of SER, please visit:
http://www.epiresearch.org/renew/memberform.html

Also please take note of new websites!!

Epidemiology Fellowship board
Epidemiology Job board

Students can sign up at both sites to receive fellowship and/or job listing alerts.

Positions in the SER-Student Caucus’ Leadership

We are currently accepting nominations for officers and chair/co-chair positions in the SER – Student Caucus (SER-SC). Holders of these positions, officers and chairs, will constitute the SER-SC Executive Council. These positions will be in effect for the June 2007-June 2008 year.

If you are a student member of SER or interested in becoming a member and would like to nominate yourself for a leadership position in the SER-Student Caucus, please write a brief personal statement (250 words) pertaining to the position you're interested in. The self-nomination statement will be accepted from March 31 to April 20, 2007. The statement should include:

--A short bio - e.g. school, interests etc.
--Previous experiences or pertinent skills you have developed that will enable you to serve the SER-SC Executive Council effectively.
--Priority issues you would work on, if elected.

Please send your personal statement to the current nominations chair of the SER student caucus , Vasanti Malik at vmalik@hsph.harvard.edu . Contact Vasanti if you have any questions about the positions or initial procedures.


Description of available SER-SC Executive Council positions:

The President Elect

• assume the position of Interim President if the President is temporarily unable or unavailable to attend to duties;
• preside over the SER-SC Business Meeting if the President is unable to attend;
• preside over any SER-SC meetings/conference calls if the President is unable to attend;
• assist President with the oversight of all Standing and Ad Hoc Committees;
• represent the SER-SC to the SER Executive Board and other organizations if the President is unable to do so;
• fulfill other duties as assigned by the President;
• assume the position of President following the term as President Elect.

The Secretary/Communications

• record and send the minutes of all official meetings of the SER-SC and official correspondence to the SER-SC Executive Committee after each SER-SC Executive Committee meeting;
• resent semi-annual reports to the SER-SC Executive Committee;
  make all reports to the Executive Committee available to the general membership via the SER-SC listserve and/or website;
• provide administrative support to all Standing and Ad Hoc committees;
• forward important announcements for posting on the website to the SER staff;
• promote the Annual SER Meeting and SER-SC sponsored programs and other events;
  review and update SER-SC bylaws as necessary

Nominations/Membership Committee Chair(s)

• serve as chair of the Membership Committee and Nominations Committee;
  assist SER Executive Board and SER staff in all membership outreach and recruitment;
  encourage involvement by the membership in the SER-SC Executive Committee and committee leadership and affairs;
• coordinate and oversee the nomination and election of officers. If the Membership/Nominations chair(s) him/herself is running, then another SER-SC member will be appointed by the president to also oversee the elections process;
  verify SER membership status of all nominees for positions in the SER-SC Executive Committee;
• implement election procedures according to the timelines and process specified in the Bylaws;
• disseminate results of elections to the membership;
• present semi-annual reports to the SER-SC Executive Committee;
• recruit SER Champions and SER-SC Champions ;
• disseminate information to SER Champions and SER-SC Champions

Program Committee Chair(s)

• serve as chair of the Annual Meeting Programs Committee;
  encourage and solicit ideas and suggestions from the general membership regarding Annual SER Meeting programming, specifically for SER-SC sponsored workshops, panels, poster sessions or presentations;
• plan and implement SER-SC programs for the Annual SER Meeting plan and implement other programming events and services for the membership, as necessary;
• present semi-annual reports to the SER-SC Executive Committee

Abstract Committee Chair/Treasurer(s)

• serve as chair of the Abstract Committee and act as Treasurer for SER-SC;
• develop, submit for SER-SC Executive Committee approval and maintain the annual budget;
• present semi-annual financial reports to the SER-SC Executive Committee;
  maintain and archive all financial records;
• sign all checks in addition to the President;
• promote abstract submission among student membership;
• coordinate student abstract committee in order to facilitate review of abstracts submitted for the SER annual meeting;
• assist in the SER student poster judging process as requested
  

Procedure and time line:

The 2007 election of the SER - Student Caucus leadership, will be implemented by the current nominations committee. Votes will be submitted via website ballot and tallied by SER staff, who will notify the nominations committee chair(s) of the results. All SER-SC members in good standing or those who will be members by the annual meeting are eligible to be nominated and to vote. All SER-SC Executive Council positions except for President elect may be held by a student member living outside the United States. This limitation is due to the financial costs of the President elect attending SER Executive Council Board Meetings and conference calls among SER-SC Executive Council officers should the president be unable to fulfill these duties. In the event of a tie for the position of president elect, a run-off election will occur, consisting of one week of additional voting. In the event of a tie for any other Executive council position, if both candidates agree, co-chairs are permissible, otherwise, a run-off election will occur, consisting of one week of voting. Committee co-chairs are permissible for the top two vote-receiving candidates in any position, providing both agree to share the office prior to the election. In the event of open positions on the ballot, space for write-ins will be included. For write-in candidates, it will be verified that he/she is interested in running for office, if so, an additional week of voting will take place. Information on when on-line voting will occur will be sent out after all nominations have been received.