Chairman Capito Questions at Labor-H Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on NIH Budget Requests
What this video covers
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairing a Senate Labor-HHS appropriations subcommittee hearing on the NIH budget request, uses her question round on two topics: cancer care in rural states and new opioid research. Bhattacharya heads the NIH delegation, but in this clip the answers come from the NCI and NIDA institute directors seated with him.
Key points
- Capito opens by pushing back on insinuations from colleagues about the six NIH witnesses, calling them “incredible scientists” working on some of the country’s most devastating problems.
- Capito, from rural West Virginia, asks whether NCI will keep reviewing alternative designation pathways, noting that some states with the highest cancer incidence and mortality have no NCI-designated cancer center, where she says care is proven to be better.
- The NCI witness agrees research advances are no good unless they reach all Americans, says the institute is working closely with West Virginia University on its application, and points to NCORP and NCTN trial sites as another route for bringing cutting-edge trials to rural areas.
- Turning to NIDA director Nora Volkow, Capito asks about what she calls exciting opioid research results from NIDA’s intramural team.
- Volkow describes a novel, highly potent opioid identified by Dr. Michaelides’ team that, in animals, activates the opioid receptor in a different way, producing pain relief without the respiratory depression or addictiveness of typical opioids — while stressing it still has to be tested in humans.