It’s a good thing I was forced to write this post lying down, because I might have passed out or thrown up when I saw the RFA totals for last week. Take precautions before you keep reading:
NIH issued more than $137 MILLION in RFAs just last week. NIH has cracked $2.5 billion for this fiscal year.
Interestingly, seven RFAs totaling $63 million form a funding package for the Human, Heredity, and Health in Africa (H3Africa). This program supports African researchers studying the genetic and environmental contributors to health and disease in Africa. This package illustrates how multiple RFAs can be combined to fund different projects around a central goal, including training, data centers, and research projects. Can you think of any other scientific areas that could benefit from a multi-prong approach to jump start research?
With the end of FY 2016 just seven weeks away, I think it likely that we will see a flurry of RFA activity as Institutes race to obligate money before the coffers close. It remains an open question whether NIH will be in a hurry to issue the promised ME/CFS RFA.
Edited to add: Many commenters here and elsewhere have criticized the large sum allocated to the H3Africa project. I do not. African researchers need financial support, and many governments have few resources to give them. Furthermore, African public health is under tremendous strain. NIH is well placed to support this research to some extent. What I do object to is the fact that NIH has yet to make good on Dr. Collins’s promise to ramp up ME/CFS research.
- Total RFAs Issued by NIH: 289 (October 2015 to date)
- Total Dollars Committed to RFAs: $2,520,000,617 (October 2015 to date)
- Total RFAs for ME/CFS: ZERO (October 2015 to date)
| Week Beginning | RFAs Issued | Total Commitment | RFAs for ME/CFS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8/8/16 | 13 | $137,053,000 | Zero |
| 8/1/16 | 9 | $30,900,000 | Zero |
| 7/25/16 | 5 | $128,556,617 | Zero |
| 7/18/16 | 3 | $17,950,000 | Zero |
| 7/11/16 | 10 | $75,855,000 | Zero |
| 7/4/16 | 0 | $0 | Zero |
| 6/27/16 | 3 | $12,971,000 | Zero |
| 6/20/16 | 1 | $2,000,000 | Zero |
| 6/13/16 | 5 | $21,475,000 | Zero |
| 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.
For crying out loud. More money last week than has been spent in the past… EVER… for ME.
It is pretty sickening.
THIS ANGERS ME TO NO END. The NIH funded $63 million in RFA’s for the Human, Heredity, and Health in AFRICA. This is TEN TIMES the entire ME RESEARCH BUDGET FOR 2016. I am so SICK AND TIRED of them funding research outside the US when the needs are so great here WITH US TAX PAYER MONEY. NIH issued more than $137 MILLION in RFAs just last week and has cracked $2.5 billion for this fiscal year. ME has received ZERO, NIL, NADA, NOTHING, ZILCH. The DOH and NIH are just too large and bureaucratic to effectively solve diseases effectively. THIS MUST STOP!!! #Millionsmissing #DOHfail #NIHfail #Morebrokenpromises
Makes you want to throw up, doesn’t it.
Here I had such high expectations for 2016.
We don’t have a good enough press – and presence in the minds of people. We’re hidden away. I wish I could organize a concerted effort to get people to read my novel with a CFS main character – I wrote it to get under your skin – and it’s had that effect on those who have read it, but I can’t get more people to read!
I just wrote to Dr. Francis Collins, head of the NIH, regarding this. Short letter, copying this link. If anyone else wants to write, his email address is francis.collins@nih.hhs.gov. We have to make ourselves hard to ignore.
Thanks Billie, great suggestion. I am curious what Dr C response will be; I hope you share it.
and it won’t help or will make things worse if they issue an RFA for studying fatigue.
so beyond over it.
We need significant funding.
We need appropriate research.
We need viable treatments.
We need our lives back!
We have been forced to wait far too long for each of these!
This waiting game has never been fun.
Now though it become infuriating.
This is an outrage and reeks of the ongoing malicious, purposeful cover-up of the disease myalgic encephalomyelitis!! They couldn’t be more obvious in their motives than if they stood up and just admitted we don’t want the world to know the cause of this disease!! The implications resulting from finding the cause and cure could result in an unparalleled number of lawsuits and potentially destroy their billion Dollar baby- the vaccine programs! CDC, NIH, HHS, WHO, the bio weapons department of war and other departments I can’t think of because of my brain fog, what are you covering up? How could such a huge population of such desperately sick people be ignored for the number of decades that have passed by so far? Get the mud off your face and give us some answers!
Well atleast we were not one of the 6,000 to 10,000 US haemophiliacs that got AIDs from contaminated blood plasma manufactured by Bayer (Bayer and the FDA tried to cover it up). The most famous US person to die from the infected plasma, was a child, Ryan White.
The FDA does not protect the US or the rest of the world. This is a list of how many haemophiliacs got infected with AIDs. No one at Bayer was ever prosecuted for killing thousands of people.
US 6k-10k
Canada 2k
France 4k
Italy 1.3K
Japan 1.4k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products
Thats right, Bayer, FDA, CDC were responsible for spreading AIDS globally. Again, no one was criminally prosecuted in the US.
HIV infected blood products were sold in the US until 1984, when Cutter began selling heat treated Factor VIII and IX. Cutter continued to sell unheated products overseas for at least a year longer. While no one was prosecuted criminally that I could find, Bayer did pay out tens of millions of dollars to those affected by the practice.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bayer-admits-it-paid-millions-in-hiv-infection-cases-just-not-in-english/