Endocrine Insider
January 10, 2008

After a drawn-out process including several continuing resolutions and a failed veto override attempt, Congress and the president have agreed upon appropriations for FY 2008 in an omnibus spending package that was signed into law on December 26, 2007. Though both chambers of Congress consistently supported larger increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, the final appropriations bill contained only about a 0.5 percent programmatic increase for the agency, due in large part to the president’s promised and delivered veto of domestic spending packages that exceeded his original budget request. The final omnibus package met his overall spending level, though individual agencies’ levels may have differed from his request.

The overall funding level for NIH in 2008 is set at $29.2 billion, but with specific set-asides such as a transfer to the Global AIDS Fund and specific amounts earmarked for the Common Fund and the National Children’s Study, the funding level of the Institutes and Centers comes to about $300 million more than the amount provided in the Joint Resolution for FY 2007. While a disappointment to both the research community and its advocates in Congress, the number does exceed the figure in the president’s original proposed budget for FY 2008.

In addition to the very limited increase in NIH funding, the omnibus spending package includes language regarding the requirement for results of NIH-funded research to be available freely to the public within 12 months of publication. Until now, authors have been encouraged to voluntarily submit their published articles to PubMed Central, but the new legislation makes it a requirement for NIH-funded scientists to ensure that their peer-reviewed, accepted manuscripts are submitted to the database within 12 months. The Endocrine Society’s journals already submit all such articles to PubMed Central within the designated time period on behalf of their authors. It is unclear at this time how NIH will implement and regulate the new requirements, but it plans to begin procedures soon and to have the mandatory policy fully functional by spring. More details will be available in future issues of Endocrine Insider.