Community Sign-on Letter to Protect the NIH Fogarty International Center with Signatures
March 30, 2017
Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Ryan, and Democratic Leader Pelosi: We the undersigned urge Congress to reject devastating funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed under the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 “skinny budget,” released on March 16, 2017. Of grave concern is the targeted elimination of the Fogarty International Center at NIH. This indiscriminate cut jeopardizes life-saving research required to end devastating global diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS, as well as malaria, dengue, and Ebola.
The Fogarty Center’s central mission is to support training programs and operational research for the next generation of global health scientists, and to foster collaboration between U.S. scientists and their peers abroad. Of particular note is the Fogarty HIV Research Training Program, which builds the multi-disciplinary biomedical, behavioral, and social science research capacity of scientists in the U.S. and abroad in HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care. Since 1988, this program has trained over 2,000 scientists from 100 countries. This program has allowed the U.S. to lead in shaping the global body of knowledge on HIV/AIDS, and support vital research in areas heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS to inform the response globally and in the U.S.