Sen. Murray introduces bill to restore medical research funding

Author: Coral Garnick

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, introduced a bill Thursday to create a new funding stream for the National Institutes of Health and the Food & Drug Administration in an effort to restore medical research funding around the country.

Washington state ranks No. 8 in the nation for the amount of NIH funding it receives. The funding is critical for large research institutions that otherwise must turn more to private donors to to support work on medical innovations and research.

Murray’s office says Congress has been cutting the purchasing power of the NIH for more than a decade and something needs to be done to get the funding level back up to what it was in 2006. The funding decline was exacerbated in 2013 when NIH funding was cut as part of the sequestration when Congress couldn’t reach a budget agreement.

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