According to experts, a congressional proposal to reduce the Pentagon-funded clinical research account by hundreds of millions of dollars in this fiscal year alone may put a stop to the fight against deadly diseases.
The House and Senate are expected to vote on the six-month continuing resolution for fiscal 2025, which would reduce the Defense Health Program’s research and development account by$ 1.2 billion, from$ 2.9 billion in fiscal 2024 to$ 1.7 billion, or 41 %. The so-called Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program has been reduced from$ 1.5 billion to$ 600 million, or 57 %, making up the largest portion of that cut.
The plan, which was created and sustained by Congress and is fairly funded, awards funds to hundreds of projects each year at both , the Defense Department , labs, and outdoor research institutions, including at some British universities, to research everything from cancer to battlefield wounds to suicide prevention.
Democrats have voiced opposition to the proposed speech and statement cut, especially in Congress. Washington is rife with wave after wave of information about Trump administration activities, and as a government shutdown approaches, the Pentagon study program debate has been mostly untold.
However, Fran Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a campaign party, is not for him.
The second-leading cause of death for people is breast cancer, which Visco herself has passed away from. She stated in a statement to lawmakers from a , March 11  that” we can continue to save some lives” if Congress passes a defense appropriations bill. If Congress approves this CR, we may destroy it.
Purpose energy
The CR, in contrast to a typical Defense budget bill, “gives no path” about how the money should be spent, aside from enumerating allocations in broad groups,” according to Visco. This results in a ceding of more of Congress ‘ so-called power of the purse, which is its main source of influence. In this way, when a CR is passed, the function of both the House and Senate Defense budget bills for governmental 2025 will be mostly for nothing.
Each of the two Defense charges, which were passed in commission on a nonpartisan base, proposed funding for dozens of projects totaling almost$ 1 billion in the House’s measure and$ 1.27 billion in the Senate’s estimate. For instance, the House costs directed that$ 5 million be put toward a task to “improve attention during the’golden hours’ for service members with lethal accidents” and to progress” solutions for warfighters deployed around the world.”
In order to establish how the Pentagon should spend the funds, funding proposals for such as those for the House and Senate are typically combined and reconciled. not a CR, though.
This week, other medical research organizations are lobbying for Congress to act in response to the proposed cuts.
The Defense Health Research Consortium, a consortium of more than 60 research organizations, is asking the Senate to reverse the$ 859 million cut to the Pentagon’s congressionally directed medical research before casting a CR.
The coordinator of the consortium, Mark Vieth, said in an email that” cutting these vital research funds does a great disservice to our warfighters and veterans, and creates a vacuum in global leadership on medical research that China would be more than happy to fulfill.”
Cutbacks that are” Devastating”
The Trump administration has also suggested limiting funding for medical research that is funded by the National Institutes of Health, which generates about$ 37 billion in annual studies and experiments, which is significantly higher than the Pentagon’s effort.
Sen.  , Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said in a speech on the , Senate , floor on Wednesday that the CR would create” an utterly massive hole in the , NIH , budget” of more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
Sen.  , Jack Reed of , Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the , Armed Services Committee, and a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said that such funding reductions at the Pentagon and , “would be devastating to our medical research infrastructure throughout the United States.”
He predicted that” we would quickly drop from the world’s top medical research country to much less.” And then it would have an incredible impact locally, and these effects would be distributed throughout the nation.”
Millions of people have been affected.
In some cases, the Pentagon’s funding for medical research is focused on conditions and illnesses that pose particular challenges to servicemembers, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide ideation, and prosthetics. The funding also aids in the fight against diseases that directly or indirectly affect everyone, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases as well as multiple types of cancer.
Visco, who was just diagnosed with a metastatic form of breast cancer last year, successfully underwent a treatment that was developed from Pentagon-funded medical research, she claimed in a statement to Congress. She added that there are other options, such as the CDK inhibitor and anti-cancer drugs Herceptin.
Similar news was shared on the Pentagon’s website last month that the congressionally directed medical research program had helped to develop a treatment for a group of tumor-causing disorders called neurofibromastosis.
The CR” could be responsible for ending critically important research that has already benefited millions of people with many different types of cancer,” Visco wrote. ” Today’s researchers may hold the key to avoiding cancer completely. You can’t stop them from moving in their tracks.
More than 30 years of research
The$ 210 million appropriation was used to launch the congressionally funded medical research program, which is run by the , U.S. Army Medical Research , and Development Command at Fort Detrick , in , Maryland. Its annual funding allotment has been in the neighborhood of$ 1 billion in recent years.
This money has been added annually by the Pentagon, but it is not requested by the Pentagon. This is considered pork-barrel spending in the eyes of some.
John McCain, a former senator from Arizona, used his campaign to oppose the Pentagon’s$ 1.5 billion in defense funding as a diversion from his earlier claims that the military should be used to make it more deadly. Additionally, the program was previously criticized for not properly coordinating its spending with the Department of Veterans Affairs, NIH, and NIH.
However, the Government Accountability Office gave the program’s management a positive evaluation, including regarding how well it coordinated with other departments and agencies in a 2022 report directed by , Congress.
Due to the proposed cuts and the uncertainty about upcoming funding, the Pentagon’s congressionally directed medical research initiative has been in a state of suspended animation in recent weeks.
This announcement appears above the program’s website:” The FY25 Defense Appropriations Bill has not been signed into law. Under the current Continuing Resolution, CDMRP is unable to make new funding opportunities available. When opportunities are announced, pre-application and application deadlines will be available, subject to future funding.
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