Dr. David Skorton:
It’s apples and oranges and other things that are not similar. And with all respect to that individual, this is somebody who doesn’t work in the research world.
First of all, the federal grants, the direct cost of grants do not cover all the costs of research. That’s number one. Number two, foundations operate by different rules than the federal government. Some of the costs that are not allowed as so-called direct costs on federal grants can be allowed on some foundation grants.
In fact, you can find on our Web site on AAMC.org a page that actually goes over this. And when you make up for these differences and when you do an apples-to-apple comparison, there’s actually not that much difference.
And then, in terms of the endowments, having been a university president twice, I can tell you that this is really apples to oranges. Those endowments serve other functions that have to do with the education and research and other things in the institution, not based on reimbursement of research grants from the federal government.
The federal government has a longstanding process to do this. And I want to give you one example from my own practice if we have time. So I practiced for decades caring for young people, teenagers and young adults with congenital heart disease, the commonest birth defect.
Some of those were those who have Down syndrome. Down syndrome. And Down syndrome as a group has a higher chance of Alzheimer’s disease than the general population. And in 2018, there was a study done, began to understand why some Down’s patients are really at risk for dementia and others are not.
This would have enormous benefits not just for Down syndrome patients, but also for those who are worried about dementia. And aren’t we all worried about it? And the thing I want to say is that that was funded during President Trump’s first term, and a lot of wonderful, wonderful medical advances were made, part of his legacy.
It’s critically important that we don’t savage our ability to do medical research.
