You might be a politician if ... you tried to defund Ebola research, only to campaign on Ebola fear | George Chidi | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/21/politician-ebola-campaign-fear-crisis
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told (...) that the NIH had been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. “Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.”
Spending on Ebola vaccine research fell from $37m in 2010 to $18m in 2014 – forcing the NIH to shelve a quarter of its grants on Ebola research, according to the Washington Post.
Republicans have been quick to note that the Obama administration’s budget for 2013 and 2014 cut spending for the CDC, but that Congress boosted it above the budget request – calling foul on Democratic campaign ads highlighting reduced expenditures. They have been less eager to note that spending has fallen in both nominal and real dollars for most of the last decade, largely as a function of general budgetary intransigence instigated by Republicans.
