UW-Madison, along with eight other prominent scientific and medical institutions, issued a report to Congress Monday, warning that continued flat funding for the National Institutes of Health could have lasting consequences on the future of science.
According to the report, NIH's budget doubled from 1998 to 2003, which led to scientific advances in important fields and basic research. However, the United States is now operating at an 8 percent loss in ""funding"" power.
UW-Madison genetics and psychiatry professor Jerry Chi-Ping Yin contributed to the report but said it is hard to say if it will have any effect in Congress.
""I doubt that asking for more money for things that are non-defense-related are going to have a very high priority within the administration,"" he said. ""That's the problem with the politicians—all they can see is their budget in front of them or a bunch of terrorists hanging out in some street corner in Kabul.""
Yin said scientists at UW-Madison are spending all of their time worrying about money, rather than expanding into new areas of research.
""One of the consequences I see is us losing the energy and the creativity of a lot of the current people that are running labs and of the professors doing science,"" Yin said. ""When a professor gets discouraged, there's a domino effect amongst the graduate students, a second generation of scientists that we're going to lose.""
Yin said the impact of losing this second generation will not be obvious until 10 to 20 years down the line, when other countries spring ahead in scientific research and discovery.
""Where there's a tremendous amount of energy that's going into science [in other countries], the technological edge that this country has had will disappear,"" he said, ""By the time it's obvious, it's too late.""
Yin said he will have funding for his research next spring, but after that he does not know what will happen.
""This is incredibly frustrating, and every single scientist knows this,"" he said. ""This is the future. This doesn't affect the level of technology or standards of living today. This is mortgaging the future, and people don't realize it.""
