December 27, 2007, 4:44 pm

Congress Gives FDA a Raise, Sets Information Free

Posted by Jacob Goldstein
Tucked into that gargantuan spending bill President Bush signed this
week were a couple of little items that caught the Health Blog's
attention.

The FDA is getting a raise. The agency will receive $1.73 billion in
fiscal 2008, $79 million above the president's budget request and $145
million above the fiscal 2007 funding level, according to FDA news.

That's over and above the user fees the agency will collect from the
drug industry through the PDUFA program, which was overhauled this
year and will bring in an estimated $392.8 million for fiscal year
2008, up $87.4 million from the current base.

The results of NIH-funded research must be made available for free
online one year after they're published in an academic journal. That's
a big deal, because the NIH is one of the biggest funders of medical
research and subscriptions to the academic journals where that
research is published can cost thousands of dollars a year.

Some researchers and academic institutions have been pushing for this
for years, and the multibillion-dollar journal-publishing industry
hired a PR guy known as "the pit bull of public relations" to fight
the change.

Hat tip: Wired Science Blog