Physical Sciences Win Out Over Biomedicine in 2009 Budget Proposal

More analysis of President Bush's FY2009 Budget proposal. This is reported on the Science daily news. It appears that the NIH will have a flat funding for 2009, while physical sciences get a substantial increase, as has been noted already.

Predictably, that view doesn't sit well with biomedical scientists. "We reject the premise that funding science in one area or at one agency must come at the expense of another," says Bob Palazzo, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Bethesda, Maryland. "There is no doubt that NSF and DOE merit the significant increases the president has proposed. But neglecting NIH at the same time is failing to grasp the interconnectedness of science."

I agree, but did the very same people argued vehemently about this when THEY were getting a doubling of funding while physical sciences suffered with flat or dwindling fundings? With Nuclear and High Energy Physics in major trouble right now, and with the unbelievable disparity in funding currently between biomedicine and physical sciences, I don't think the biomedical scientists will get that much of a sympathy from many physicists right now.

Zz.