A note about reading the fine print: news circulated last week that NIH was making grants to early-stage investigators of ME/CFS. If you only read the headlines or Twitter, you might think these grants are for research. But they aren’t; the grant even isn’t going directly from NIH to these early-stage investigators. NIH made a grant to the IACFS/ME to support conference registration, travel and hotel expenses for up to 10 early stage investigators. The meeting planning committee, not NIH, will select the investigators for this funding.
I think it’s great that IACFS/ME was successful in getting NIH support for the meeting. I also think it’s important to fund junior investigators to attend conferences because they usually don’t have enough grant money to cover travel expenses. But that’s not the same as supporting research by junior investigators.
In other news, NIH issued an update to an RFA included in the tally for the week of May 23rd. An additional $5 million has been added to the RFA for Diabetes Research Centers. I’ve updated the totals to reflect this.
Otherwise it was a pretty modest week for RFAs. Most people would probably not even sneeze at the total of $7.1 million in RFAs issued last week. But ME/CFS patients know that this exceeds all NIH spending on our disease for all of last year. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.
- Total RFAs Issued by NIH: 240 (October 2015 to date)
- Total Dollars Committed to RFAs: $2,093,240,000 (October 2015 to date)
- Total RFAs for ME/CFS: ZERO (October 2015 to date)
| Week Beginning | RFAs Issued | Total Commitment | RFAs for ME/CFS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6/6/16 | 5 | $7,100,000 | Zero |
| 5/30/16 | 4 | $6,900,000 | Zero |
| 5/23/16 | 8 | $42,400,000 | Zero |
| 5/16/16 | 2 | $7,800,000 | Zero |
| 5/9/16 | 11 | $32,100,000 | Zero |
| 5/2/16 | 8 | $32,485,000 | Zero |
| 4/25/16 | 4 | $7,500,000 | Zero |
| 4/18/16 | 10 | $42,230,000 | Zero |
| 4/18/16 | 10 | $42,230,000 | Zero |
| 4/11/16 | 4 | $6,825,000 | Zero |
| 4/4/16 | 8 | $27,000,000 | Zero |
| 3/28/16 | 13 | $161,000,000 | Zero |
| 3/21/16 | 1 | $2,700,000 | Zero |
| 3/14/16 | 5 | $23,650,000 | Zero |
| 3/7/16 | 9 | $82,710,000 | Zero |
| 2/29/16 | 1 | $1,890,000 | Zero |
| 2/22/16 | 9 | $30,100,000 | Zero |
| 2/15/16 | 4 | $26,500,000 | Zero |
| 2/8/16 | 5 | $9,500,000 | Zero |
| 2/1/16 | 8 | $26,000,000 | Zero |
| 1/25/16 | 4 | $9,300,000 | Zero |
| 1/18/16 | 2 | $4,500,000 | Zero |
| 1/11/16 | 10 | $71,200,000 | Zero |
| 1/4/16 | 0 | $0 | Zero |
| 12/28/15 | 0 | $0 | Zero |
| 12/21/15 | 3 | $10,260,000 | Zero |
| 12/18/15 | 5 | $20,260,000 | Zero |
| 12/11/15 | 27 | $765,090,000 | Zero |
| 12/4/15 | 6 | $26,600,000 | Zero |
| 11/27/15 | 4 | $21,000,000 | Zero |
| 11/20/15 | 15 | $134,400,000 | Zero |
| 11/13/15 | 2 | $16,100,000 | Zero |
| 11/6/15 | 10 | $22,850,000 | Zero |
| 10/30/15 | 7 | $49,800,000 | Zero |
| 10/23/15 | 10 | $33,200,000 | Zero |
| 10/16/15 | 0 | $0 | Zero |
| 10/9/15 | 13 | $332,450,000 | Zero |
If you want more background on the RFA Ticker, read the inaugural post.
Thanks for your wisdom. Which keeps us wiser too.
It’s disgusting; makes me sick. Appreciate you and your updates, Jennie. 🙂 I wonder when we will have some good news. 🙁
I don’t know when we’ll have good news, but I’ll keep on it until we do!
NVCBR researchers are ready with their grant proposal as soon as a call for proposals is announced. Waiting too long to send out an RFP forces researchers out of the field and into other diseases. It makes no sense if their goal is to improve knowledge surrounding ME/CFS. Jennie, thanks for your efforts to keep the public informed!
Thanks, Jennie, for your always hard work and hopefulness.
I’m pretty annoyed at all of this absurd red tape and stalling. So much could
be done in research. Even reviewing the research findings that have come out
would be helpful.
You all have more patience than I do.