WASHINGTON -- Senators Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and MarkHatfield, R-Ore., have proposed that a new "Fund for MedicalResearch" be included in health-care reform. Harkin unveiledthe proposal Wednesday at a hearing of his SenateSubcommittee on Disabilities.

Polling data presented at the hearing supported the notion thatAmericans would gladly pay extra for health care to boostfederally funded medical research. The Fund for MedicalResearch "would provide an additional $5 billion a year for theNIH and raise the grant success rate to 33 percent," saidHarkin. Less than 20 percent of National Institutes of Healthgrant applications currently get funded.

The proposed fund would supplement the agency's $10.9billion annual appropriations and 4 to 6 percent cost-of-livingadjustment by transferring $5, or 1 percent of monthlypremiums collected by the alliances, to the fund.

Harkin also said he was suspicious of a $400 million"Prevention Research Initiative" in the Health Security Acttouted by Assistant Secretary for Health and Human ServicesPhilip Lee. Last fiscal year marked the first overall budgetreduction in NIH's history.

"I think it is terribly inadequate," said Harkin. "I'm takingadvantage of your presence this morning to send a strongsignal to the administration. ... As chairman of theappropriations committee, I will be the first on the floor of theSenate ... to pull down this phony cover."

Harkin also voiced biotechnology and pharmaceutical industryconcerns about the breakthrough drug committee both duringand after the hearing. It could have a "chilling effect oninvestment," he told BioWorld. "This type of thing has neverbeen done before; it's a crazy idea."

"I think there are some very good leaders in thepharmaceutical industry, and if they have expressed thoseconcerns to you, I think this merits some furtherconversations," Lee replied. "We certainly do not want todiminish their research investment."

There may be more to Lee's comments than meets the eye.Only days earlier, a prominent figure in biomedical researchtold BioWorld that the administration has not made up its mindabout the breakthrough drug committee and is trying to buytime while it deals with more pressing issues.

James Watson, who with Francis Crick helped determine thestructure of DNA, said, "As a life-long Democrat, I can't tell youhow disappointed I am with Phil Lee's testimony. It seemedlike he was brain dead."

Testimony by Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, anon-profit alliance of clinical and research agencies, suggestedthat the administration is missing an opportunity to turn itsresearch priorities around.

Over three-quarters of Americans would spend an extra $3 aweek to support medical research, according to a Harris polltaken last month -- much more than enough to cover Harkin'sfund's expenses. And 66 percent said they considerbiomedicine to be the most valuable type of research,compared with 4 percent for defense and less than 1 percenteach for space, electronics, computers and transportation.

Yet as a percentage of health-care spending, medical researchhas been shrinking for 30 years, from 5 percent in 1960 to 3.3percent in 1990, said Herbert Pardes, dean of ColumbiaUniversity's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

-- David Holzman Washington Editor

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.