Tag Archives: RFA

The Death Threat Myth Exposed

Posted on April 6, 2021 by Jennie Spotila

Update April 7, 2021: Further comment from Dr. Vicky Whittemore added to the end of this post. Last week, an old story was recounted to a new audience. During the March 30, 2021 NIH telebriefing with the ME/CFS community, Dr. … Continue reading →

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NIH Funding for ME in 2020: Falling Flat

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Jennie Spotila

NIH funding for ME/CFS research should be increasing each year. Everyone agrees that this is needed. Instead, 2020 funding has flatlined. Worse yet, we are in danger of falling off several cliffs looming ahead. Image credit: Off the Charts, AJN … Continue reading →

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The 2019 NIH Funding Fact Check

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Jennie Spotila

NIH claims to have spent $15 million on ME/CFS research in 2019. However, my examination of the details shows that NIH actually spent $13 million, which means NIH is exaggerating its spending by 14%. This gap between reality and NIH’s … Continue reading →

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NIH Funding for ME Needs Life Support

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

Fiscal year 2019 is over, and we can now examine how much NIH spent on ME research. In previous years, I’ve broken down the funding at a granular level. I have done that in a separate post for those who … Continue reading →

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NIH Funding for ME in 2019: The Details

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

Every year, I take a careful look at the funding that NIH reports it spent on ME research. Normally, this is mostly a number crunching exercise, but this year I wrote an entire post about a serious problem I discovered … Continue reading →

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Another NIH Funding Fact Check

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

In April 2019, NIH finally published their funding numbers for ME/CFS research in 2018. That means it is time for another fact-check and correction! Update October 16, 2019: as explained below, I received more accurate numbers from NIH and have … Continue reading →

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I Want To Believe Dr. Collins, But I Don’t

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, spoke to the ME community earlier this month at the meeting on Accelerating Research on ME/CFS. For the ten minutes he was present, Dr. Collins said a lot of nice … Continue reading →

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Who Reviews ME/CFS Applications for NIH?

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

Note: After publishing this post, I discovered that I had inadvertently missed one meeting in 2017. This post was updated on February 12, 2019 to reflect all new calculations. The changes are not significant enough to alter any conclusions. There … Continue reading →

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NIH Obstacles Thwart ME Research

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Jennie Spotila

After I published my post on the NIH Obstacle Course (November 2018), readers’ reactions made clear that a shorter version of the article could be useful. Today, STAT published that shorter article in the First Opinion section. You can read … Continue reading →

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NIH’s Obstacle Course to Success for ME/CFS Researchers

Posted on November 29, 2018 by Jennie Spotila

A shorter version of this article was published on STATNews on January 10, 2019. One message dominates NIH’s talk about ME/CFS research: submit more high quality grant applications. Funding would increase if there were more high quality grant applications. Give … Continue reading →

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