Obama Continues Push For Ebola Spending

Before a crowd of enthusiastic NIH employees and patients, President Barack Obama last week called on Congress to pass an emergency funding bill that would pump $6.2 billion into Ebola research and support.

“This is an expensive enterprise. And that money is running out. We cannot beat Ebola without more funding,” Obama said. Congress should pass the spending legislation before its holiday recess that is scheduled to begin later this week, he said, calling it a “Christmas present to the American people and the world.”

Congress has yet to act on Obama’s Ebola funding proposal, which would funnel $238 million to NIH. Other money would go toward a wide variety of efforts, including Ebola research, direct support in West Africa, and public health preparedness in the U.S.

Obama highlighted an announcement made several days earlier that a Phase I clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine developed by NIH and GlaxoSmithKline had successfully produced antibodies against the virus. A Phase II trial will be starting in West Africa soon.

The vaccine is “the product of over a decade of inquiry and work,” Obama said. When that research first started, he added, “nobody really gave a hoot.”

Calling NIH “America’s lab,” Obama voiced strong support for the agency’s basic research mission. “One of the great virtues of what you’ve done here at NIH is reminded people that science matters and that science works,” he said.