Washington, D.C. (Feb., 2025) — Since its inception, 80 years ago, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), first known as the National Council on Alcoholism, has consistently and in good faith supported, and advocated for, the application of systematic research to the problems of addictions. This resulted in founding two of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)–the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)–along with independent scientific groups such as the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA).
Because of the work of these entities, and of the other National Institutes that study and advance every aspect of human health, American know-how leads the entire world in medical and biological science. More broadly, the US medical science enterprise remains unmatched in our time and anywhere on our planet.
Despite this ongoing success, we now learn through the NIH’s own communication (NOT-OD-25-068) on Friday, February 7, 2025, that the NIH bureaucracy itself will tear down the platform that supports the success of our American medical science enterprise. To some, the NIH statement is a ploy, as when a developer tells a contractor that he will pay only 15¢ on the dollar for work done as a bargaining strategy so the contractor will eventually settle for 35¢. If so, it casts the NIH officials as dealing in bad faith.
But it must be taken seriously since it threatens to cut the funds that keep that platform in good repair, allowing American Science to flourish upon it. That platform is the University system in the United States that houses the laboratories and classrooms where our scientists work. As of this writing, the US Courts have blocked the NIH action for the time being.
From news reports, we learn that some perceive a desire among a few voter groups to reduce the size of government. Does this extend to dismantling the U.S. scientific enterprise?
Modern science is competitive worldwide. In China and elsewhere, for example, planners will have read the same NIH announcement. No doubt they are conferring now on which parts of its scientific enterprise America will lose first and which jobs can be moved to China.
When the devastating funding cuts take effect, we will lose our competitive edge. From there, scientific, medical, technological, and related jobs—including the support services that benefit all our communities—will follow investment dollars overseas. Scientific leadership will leave the United States.
We are a nonpartisan organization: our mission is to advocate for individuals suffering from addiction disorders. We have long-standing experience in working with both Parties in the Congress. In our view, the stated NIH action is a step in the wrong direction for all of US human health disorders.
At the NCADD, therefore, we firmly oppose the stated NIH research budget cuts. America’s leadership in Medicine and Science is far too vital—to all of us and to our economy—to jeopardize by NIH cuts that show a lack of understanding of the necessary infrastructure for meaningful scientific research and that threaten our Nation’s scientific enterprise. It is time for the Congress, by way both of its budgeting power and its fiscal responsibility, to protect our U.S. Medicine and Science enterprise from this reckless and shortsighted attack on America’s future.
