And its officials are gimlet-eyed reviewers of such studies. On boosters, Americans have heard conflicting messages from various parts of the U. All but Graham are members of the White House covid task force. Part of the disagreement arose because President Joe Biden had announced that Americans could get a booster as soon as Sept.
Now it appears that that decision and the timing rest with the FDA, which is the normal procedure for new uses of vaccines or drugs. And Fauci said he respects that process — but he thinks it should come as quickly as possible.
Researchers at the NIH typically focus on early-stage drug development, asking how a virus infects and testing ways to treat the infection. Yet no other infectious disease expert in any branch of the U. Fauci was hard-pressed to give exact dates for when his thinking turned on the need for boosters. The past 18 months are a blur, he said.
The Israelis already have that data in spades. They boost, they get an increase by tenfold in the protection against infection and severe disease. In July, Israel, which started vaccinating its population early and used only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, began reporting severe breakthrough cases in previously vaccinated elderly people. Fauci noted that Israel and — to a lesser extent — the U. And once Israel had boosted its population, the Israeli scientists showed their NIH counterparts, hospitalizations of previously vaccinated people, which had been rising, dropped dramatically.
Emerging evidence suggests boosters make people far less likely to transmit the virus to others, an important added benefit. To be sure, members of the White House covid response team — including Fauci and former FDA Commissioner David Kessler — had begun preparing a timeline for boosters months earlier.
Kessler, speaking to Congress in May, said that it was unclear then whether the boosters would be needed but that the U. Hence the date of the week of September the 20th was chosen. During subsequent health crises, the agency became more involved in medical research. It began to award research grants, and in changed its name to the National Institute of Health the plural was adopted in , reflecting the addition of research arms for everything from cancer to heart disease.
Today, the organization has 27 different institutes and centers, including the National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Mental Health. The larger agency is approaching the disease from a variety of fronts and disseminating the latest research as it evolves.
At the time, malaria was still common in the South, where many military bases were located. The agency eliminated mosquito hotspots, trained local officials, educated the public, and developed malaria prevention techniques for troops deployed to the Pacific Theater during World War II.
At first, the organization was devoted purely to malaria prevention, and its efforts helped eradicate the disease from the U. Then the CDC expanded, addressing everything from polio to rabies and becoming the official agency to deal with health in public disasters. During COVID, the CDC has developed tests to detect and monitor the disease, prepared guidance for public health departments and the public, directed money to healthcare facilities, and communicated with the public about every aspect of the pandemic.
All three agencies are part of the U. Department of Health and Human Services, and their budgets grew with the pandemic. All rights reserved.
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Go Further. NIH and CDC research into infectious disease and mobilization against pandemics probably fits this category. The budget p. It appears p. State public health programs should be funded by state taxpayers.
For , Trump proposed cutting state grants, but also proposed increasing CDC staffing p. Those subsidies are not public goods. This year, NIH spending is just 2. Live Now. Cato at Liberty. Blog Home RSS. Email Signup Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!
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