On December 8, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a bill (H.R. 6164) to reauthorize and restructure the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after adopting a substitute amendment offered by Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) on behalf of Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). The House agreed to the Senate amendment on December 9 by voice vote. The president is expected to sign the bill into law.
The bill authorizes $30.331 billion for FY2007, $32.831 billion for FY2008, and “such sums as may be necessary” for FY2009, more than the version initially approved by the House on September 27 (see The Source, 9/29/06).
The measure allows the director of NIH to use a portion of the total authorization to create a common fund to sponsor research across NIH institutes, offices, and centers. If the director of NIH uses five percent or more of the total amount appropriated to NIH for the common fund, the secretary of Health and Human Services and director of NIH will be required to report to Congress on the uses of the common fund. It also requires the director of NIH to submit a biennial report to Congress on NIH’s strategic plan for the common fund.
It also requires that clinical trials be comprised of diverse human subjects, including women and minorities; that the members of the Scientific Management Review Board have broad expertise regarding NIH functions; that the director of NIH “assemble accurate data to be used to assess research priorities, including information to better evaluate scientific opportunity, public health burdens, and progress in reducing health disparities”; and that there be annual reporting on NIH’s collaboration with other Department of Health and Human Services agencies and annual reports to Congress on activities related to whistleblower complaints.
The final version directs the secretary of Health and Human Services to redistribute unspent FY2004-2006 Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funds to states whose projected expenditures for FY2007 will exceed their respective allotment for FY2006 or FY2007. The funds will be drawn from states that received FY2005 and FY2006 CHIP funding but have not spent their entire allotment by March 31, 2007 and for whom the unspent portion is projected to be in excess of 200 percent of their respective need. Redistributed funds may only be used to cover populations eligible for insurance under CHIP on October 1, 2006. It also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to submit a report to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee by April 30, 2007 regarding the amounts redistributed to states and the extent to which the redistributions have reduced or eliminated funding shortfalls.
