Sir
In your News story '222 NIH grants: 22 researchers' (Nature 452, 258–259; 2008), you contrast the concerns of junior investigators in the face of the flat budget of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the comparative prosperity of a handful of their senior colleagues. Against this, I would argue that your review of grant numbers is flawed. It is absurd to consider supplements to parent grants, such as centre-support grants or training add-ons, as separate grants. Training grants should not be seen as counter to the self-interest of junior investigators. Also, you should have explained that junior investigators are supported by large centres or networks (in which hundreds of junior investigators may be engaged), although the NIH demands a single administrative leader — therefore a large grant is attributed to one person, often with many centres or supplements.
The end of the rise in funding for the NIH corresponded to the start of the war in Iraq, with its no-bid multibillion-dollar contracts and support of 150,000 Americans overseas. Half-a-trillion dollars (a very conservative estimate) has been spent there during the past five years, nearly four times the annual NIH budget in each of those years. The costs show no signs of abating — and all this in the context of tax cuts and economic recession.
So Nature should keep asking the tough questions about NIH funding decisions and effort-reporting policies. But please consider alternatives to your simplistic thesis.