Zerhouni Goes on the Offensive to Answer Charges NIH Has Not Produced
Zerhouni Goes on the Offensive to Answer Charges NIH Has Not ProducedNIH Director Elias Zerhouni, MD, is launching a campaign to educate the public and Congress on the value of their investment in medical research. His team is putting together a collection of facts and figures not previously assembled in this context.
"I have made a decision that we are strategically going to educate people. We are launching a strategic ... campaign to educate the American people about the value of the NIH investment over the last 34 years," Zerhouni said. "I am sick and tired of hearing negative messages about NIH, and I am going to take on directly the job of educating the people about the extraordinary value of the nation's investment,"
Zerhouni told RPA.
Zerhouni said he wants people to have a solid understanding of the facts related to such questions as "How do we know the NIH budget is a good investment?"; "What have you done with the funds used to double the NIH budget?"; and "How does NIH set its priorities?" Or, to the misconception that "we're putting a lot of money into NIH, but it doesn't seem like anybody cares about really improving healthcare."
These questions deserve a solid answer, Zerhouni said.
Since 1971 "the life expectancy of Americans has increased 6.7 years because of direct discoveries fostered by [NIH]. All totaled the federal investment in medical research for all diseases and afflictions during that 34-year period amounts to slightly more than $1,200 per American,"
Zerhouni said. That period stretches between 1971, the year President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and launched the so-called War on Cancer, and the end of 2005.
"One of the things that occurred during the doubling," said Zerhouni, "is we added another year to the life expectancy for Americans." This fact and others - for example, more than 12 million Americans' lives have been saved by knowledge gained through NIH efforts in that 34-year period - will be part of Zerhouni's armory.
For starters, the NIH director said, "this year, for the first time in the history of mankind, the number of absolute deaths from cancer went down [by 10,200, according to CDC]. This figure [takes into consideration] the increase in population since 1971. So, as you look at the same population basis 34 years ago, this is an enormous drop. We are the first society ever that shows a net drop - not relative drop, not percent drop - but absolute number of deaths from cancer have gone down."
"We're spending right now a total of $16 per year, per American for cancer research. This is to fight a disease that 40% to 45% of the population will have to deal with. At the start of the War on Cancer in
1971 we were spending about $8 per year, per American," Zerhouni said.
"The total investment over the entire 34 years in cancer research per American is less than $300 when you add it all up. During that period survival rates for cancer victims went up from six months to five years.
And," he stressed, "cancer is 200 diseases, not just one disease."
Heart disease has an even better return on investment. "Our total investment currently on heart disease, lung disease, blood disease, and stroke over the 34 years is about $110 per American. During that time we've had a 60% reduction in mortality - 815,000 people less are dying per year from just coronary disease alone," he said. "That is down from
1.3 million. Coronary disease is no longer the number one killer for people under 85 years of age."
"More than 200,000 people are saved each year from death [due to] strokes. That figure is down from around 400,000 who died annually in the past from strokes. How many people get heart disease and stroke?" he asked rhetorically. "Basically one-half to two-thirds of the population are going to have heart disease."
Zerhouni also is proud of his agency's progress against HIV/AIDS. He said he remembers the beginning of the AIDS epidemic this way: "If you recall the literature of the day, the projections were that there will be no way for the healthcare system to tackle the 100,000 to 150,000 admissions of AIDS patients per year."
"I remember at [Johns] Hopkins [University] the whole fourth floor, which is a medical floor, was half-full with AIDS patients with pneumonias, [tuberculosis], pneumocystis and Kaposi's. It was a museum of horror, and we had made projections: If this thing doesn't stop, we're going to have our entire medical beds picked up. There was worry that half the capacity of the hospital might be picked up by AIDS patients," Zerhouni said.
The first drugs to fight HIV/AIDS came out of the National Cancer Institute from the investment in the War on Cancer. NIH intramural research was the resource, and their work was picked up collaboratively by the private sector, Zerhoouni said.
"On average we spend about $1 bil. dollars a year for drug discovery in AIDS. So, since it all started, we're at the $15 bil. mark maximum.
We've developed 82 drugs. Twenty-two of the drugs have been approved for AIDS and are being used in treatment. Another 60 drugs are in various stages of development. All this had a role in transforming [HIV/AIDS] from a lethal disease to a survivable disease. The average life expectancy has grown to 33 years post diagnosis. So these people are going to have almost a normal life span."
"That $15 bil. investment saved us $1.4 tril. in hospital costs. ... If NIH hadn't been here, right now you could have had 150,000 persons in hospitals dying from AIDS. And, that's just in America, by the way.
You'd have people on the front steps on the Capitol wondering why no discoveries had been made. It was NIH fundamental research that averted a social disaster."
Zerhouni pointed out that those stories just highlight the facts. In
1971 the American pharmaceutical industry was ranked fifth in the world, and today it is ranked number one, he said. And, NIH has sparked the 3,000-company biotechnology industry.
"Because of the total investment in medical research over the past 34 years we also have the Human Genome Project, which is now giving us a new perspective on medicine," he added. "That project provides an opportunity for us to transform medicine in the next 20 years from curative to preemptive strategies, which will ultimately be the only solution to rising healthcare costs. The only solution is to reduce the disease burden before it happens. That is the vision," Zerhouni said.
-- Bradie Metheny
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Last Edited: 03/14/06 03:07 PM by Evette Mezger