John Mac
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Opinion piece in STAT by Jennifer Spotila
https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/10/nih-obstacles-thwart-myalgic-encephalomyelitis-research/
An estimated 1 million Americans with this condition have been living for decades in the crisis mode of disability and lack of treatment. We have repeatedly pressed the National Institutes of Health to address the problem by increasing research funding; one ME/CFS organization even met with NIH Director Francis Collins in December 2018 to make that point. The response from the NIH is always the same: Researchers should submit more high-quality grant applications.
On the surface, this sounds reasonable. From documents a colleague and I obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, I calculated that between 2011 and 2016 the NIH funded 25 percent of ME/CFS grant applications, a higher acceptance rate than the average for all grants. It seems obvious, then, that more applications would yield more funding.
But it’s not that simple: Despite growing interest in ME/CFS, NIH grant applications to study the disease have dwindled since 2015.
https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/10/nih-obstacles-thwart-myalgic-encephalomyelitis-research/