In concert with the research advocacy community, NAEVR is requesting that Congress fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at $44.7 Billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, a $3 Billion or 7.2 percent increase over the FY2020 program level of $41.7 Billion. This increase is necessary to provide inflation-plus-growth increases to the Institutes and Centers; fund special initiatives, including the Innovation Account mandated under the 21st Century Cures Act; and support the next generation of scientists through funding early-stage investigators. NAEVR requests that Congress fund the National Eye Institute (NEI) at $875 Million, a $51 Million or 6.2 percent increase over FY2020. Even with NEI funding increases of $148 Million total in the FY2016-2020 timeframe, Congress must continue to rebuild the NEI budget which lost purchasing power due to prior flat funding and less-than-inflation increases.
Regarding the Department of Defense (DOD) Vision Research Program (VRP), NAEVR requests FY2021 funding at $30 Million, a $10 Million increase over FY2020. NAEVR cites AEVR’s 2018 Cost of Military Eye Injury study, published in the January 2019 online edition of Military Medicine journal, that estimates cost of combat-related eye injuries in the 2000-2017 timeframe at $41.5 Billion, with $40.2 Billion of that reflecting the present value of a lifetime of benefits, lost wages, and family care. Additionally, the VRP can only fund a fraction of the grants with both scientific merit and program relevance.
To read NAEVR’s press release and link to the funding positions, click into the following: https://www.eyeresearch.org/news/NAEVR_Releases_FY2021_Funding_Requests
