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The gravity of the government
shutdown’s impact on science
October 2013
SHARING OPTIONS:
Hello? Is anyone out there? As we went to press with this
issue, the United
States Congress failed to agree on a spending plan for the
current fiscal year, and many government operations ground to a screeching
halt. The impasse
stems from fundamental, partisan conflict over the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." Although the new
healthcare law isn't
directly tied to government funding, it is being used as a
bargaining chip. While House Republicans want a bill that includes
anti-Obamacare
amendments, Senate Democrats favor a spending bill with no
amendments attached. A group of Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas,
believes
Obamacare is potentially so problematic for the country, it's worth disrupting
government funding to undercut it.
As a result, when we went to press, close to
1 million government workers were furloughed, some members of Congress gave up
their salary pay and government agencies key to the welfare of the drugmaking
industry went on a hiatus of undetermined length.
Agency operations at the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
(FDA), for example, have been limited to "emergency work involving the safety
of human life or the protection of property; criminal
law enforcement work; and
activities funded by carryover user-fee balances, including user fee balances
under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the
Generic Drug User Fee Amendments,
the Medical Device User Fee Amendments, the Animal Drug User Fee Act, the
Animal Generic Drug User Fee Act and the
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco
Control Act." The FDA further noted that "carryover user-fee balances will only
be spent on activities for
which the fees are authorized under the Federal
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act." With respect to medical product user fees, the FDA
will not have legal
authority to accept user fees assessed for FY 2014 until an
FY 2014 appropriation for the FDA is enacted.
"This will mean that the FDA will not be able to accept any
regulatory submissions for FY 2014 that require a fee payment and that are submitted
during the lapse period," the FDA stated on its website.
Things look even bleaker on the websites for the Centers for
Disease Control (or the CDC, which should be ramping up for
flu season) and the
National Institutes of Health. A red box greets
visitors with the following
message: "Due to the lapse in government funding, the information on this
website may not be up to date, transactions
submitted via the website may not
be processed and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations
are enacted." Since most of
the employees of these agencies are on unpaid
leave, there isn't anyone to sustain services like PubMed Central or GenBank
that are critical to the
research community. According to some media reports,
research institutions that were recently granted NIH funding have attempted to access
those funds,
only to be denied. Some scientific meetings scheduled for the busy
fall conference season have also been canceled or rescheduled for a day when
many
hope the government will have its act together.
From a reporter's perspective, it's frustrating to write
about all of this because just when things look really bad, suddenly they get
much worse. The NIH in particular was already smacked down by the
sequestration
earlier this year, losing $1.5 billion out of its already stretched-thin
operating budget. Now the bruised-up agency stands to lose an
estimated $600
million more when the government reopens.
So with the minds of certain government officials seeming
to
be on another planet, I headed to the local cinema this past weekend for a
little R&R time with the hubby, where we participated in the
blockbuster
opening weekend of the film
"Gravity." The film, directed by Alfonso Cuarón,
stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who survive a damaged
Space Shuttle. After
debris from a Russian anti-satellite test causes a chain
reaction of destruction, resulting in their aborted mission, communications
from Mission
Control are lost, and Bullock and Clooney are all alone up there.
"Gravity" is already being hailed as "the
greatest space
movie ever made" (high praise from Cuarón's friend and colleague, James
Cameron, he of the cinematic achievement that is "Avatar"),
and critics predict
it will dominate most categories at the next Academy Awards. "Gravity" is also
being praised by critics and scientists alike for
its realistic depictions of
the experience of space travel and its many potential complications, although
the film's crew owns up to taking certain
creative liberties to drive the plot
forward.
I should have been dazzled by the intricate
performances,
awe-inspiring cinematography and sweeping score, but instead, I found myself
distracted. Don't you hate it when you spend nearly $30 on
3D escapism, only to
remain with your feet firmly planted in reality? Even as I munched my rubbery
popcorn, I began drawing parallels between the movie
and the government
shutdown.
Both important space missions and government shutdowns seem to happen
about once a
decade. When their government counterparts on earth are silenced,
Bullock and Clooney are literally flying blind—a position in which many
biomedical
researchers are finding themselves with vital government funding
pulled out from under them. At one point, the film offers a stunning shot of
Bullock
floating in a spacecraft, curled up in the fetal position with no idea
how to pull herself out of this mess—and it seems like some Congressmen and
women are doing the same thing.
I won't spoil the end of the movie, but if these parallels
continue, there
could be a happy ending in store for the U.S. government and
the millions of people who depend on it to operate normally and efficiently. Or
not. The
whole thing could blow up in our faces, too (literally).
The gravity of the
situation cannot be overstated. We'll
continue to report on its impact on
scientific research next month, and if your research has been affected, feel
free to drop me an e-mail at
swinderman@ddn-news.com. Until then, while you're
twiddling your thumbs and waiting for our elected officials to do what we
elected them to do,
consider going to see "Gravity" at a theater near you. It
pulled in $55.6 million to set an October box office record in its opening
weekend. At
least someone is doing well these days.
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