Recent news
September 2011
GHTC director outlines why Congress must preserve critical funding for global health research
September 2, 2011 -- The Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) Director Kaitlin Christenson spoke with BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) about how the recent debt reduction legislation could hurt agencies that play a critical role in global health, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Christenson emphasized the need to protect funding for global health research.
“Our fear is that the new debt reduction legislation will force cuts beyond those already planned. Any additional cuts to the NIH budget will have a significant impact on our ability to produce new technologies targeting people living in the developing world. NIH and other agencies are conducting important research in the areas of malaria, tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases, and diarrheal disease—a plethora of diseases that need new attention. And all of them will be impacted if agencies are unable to provide support for research,” said Christenson.
Christenson continued by outlining the key milestones reached in global health research that would not have been possible without sufficient funding from the US government. These achievements include promising research developments to prevent HIV.
While Christenson acknowledged that members of Congress are faced with many tough budgetary decisions, she stressed that “we really need to educate members of Congress about the value of this work and why it's important to protect it; why it's important in terms of an American value, in terms of security and economic impact here at home and the ability to save lives worldwide."
- Read the full interview on the BIO Ventures for Global Health website
- Read GHTC’s web feature on how budgetary battles affect global health
