NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 6 • NUMBER 1 • JANUARY 2000 9

NEWS

Contrary to expectations, the Italian government’s 2000 Finance Act, approved by Parlia-ment in November, seems to have broken earlier promises to increase the country’s bio-medical research budget by 30% and to develop a sound national science policy. No extramoney has been set apart for boosting the IL500 billion ($270 million) biomedical researchbudget.

Instead, the Italian parliament has passed yet another a decree, according to which a one-year overall sum of only IL11.4 billion—representing the remains of the 1998 State bud-get—will support four national strategic research projects in the areas of oncology, neu-roscience, genetics and biotechnology.

Turin University’s PierGiorgio Strata, who co-ordinates the strategic project in neuro-science, claims “Italian scientists feel betrayed, because the government still ignores theneed to raise research spending from its current level of 1.2% of gross domestic producttowards a value comparable to that of its European partners.” Glauco Tocchini-Valentini,from the National Research Council (CNR), coordinator of the strategic project on genet-ics, adds “to implement an internationally competitive project we would need IL100 bil-lion yearly instead of the IL2.5 billion established by the decree in the field of genetics.”

The lack of any commitment to shake up the biomedical public portfolio in the newyear is casting gloom over the reform efforts recently undertaken by the government (NatureMed. 5, 132; 1999). Strata echoes the fears of many, saying “[the lack of financial backingcauses us to] doubt whether the drastic transfer of power for planning research from theCNR to the government is a serious step towards the development of a strong nationalscience policy.”

Martina Ballmaier, Milan

Italian government reneges on research promises

Israeli research must be re-directedIsraeli doctors are devoting research timelargely to clinical trials for foreign drugcompanies, an activity that produces nonew basic research knowledge, says DovLichtenberg, deputy dean of Tel AvivUniversity’s Sackler Medical School.Lichtenberg is one of a growing numberof research directors from Israel’s hospi-tals and medical schools who are askingthe government to play a greater role inreversing the sharp decline in the coun-try’s basic research. He voiced his con-cerns at a late-November conference onthe issue, organized by the Forum ofMedical Research and DevelopmentDirectors under the auspices of theScience and Technology Committee ofthe Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Bracha Rager, chief scientist of theMinistry of Health, agrees and says thatthe declining quality of Israel’s medicalresearch is reflected in publication data.Israel ranks 16th in the world in thenumber of clinical medical research pub-lications per capita according to datafrom the Institute of ScientificInformation for the years 1981–1995.Furthermore, Rager describes the healthministry research fund that she adminis-ters as “wholly inadequate” for the coun-try’s needs—$2 million per annum fromwhich to provide grants up to a maxi-mum of $25,000 with only a two-yearcommitment.

According to Gad Gilad, director ofR&D at the Asaf Ha-Rofeh MedicalCenter and representative of the Forumof Medical Research and DevelopmentDirectors, one problem is that neitherIsrael’s hospitals nor its public researchfunding bodies have specific budgets de-voted to medical research. Researchers

may receive supportfrom their hospitaldirector out of dis-cretionary funds, butno part of the hospi-tal’s budget is specif-ically set aside forresearch. Gilad is call-ing for medical andlife sciences researchers to establish astatutory national medical research-committee that could coordinate fund-ing and serve as a lobby within thebureaucracy.

Ragar concurs that the low level of

Bracha Rager

funding for basic research has made clini-cal drug trials a much more attractive ac-tivity for Israel’s doctors. She claims thatshe needs a minimum of $30 million ayear to properly support research, andproposes that foreign companies per-forming drug trials in Israel be required toearmark funds for basic research.

Anat Maor, chairperson of the Scienceand Technology Committee of theKnesset, says that although it is unlikelythat more research funds would be avail-able in the coming year, she expects thecurrent government’s policies to bringabout economic growth that will enableadditional funding a year hence.

Haim Watzman, Jerusalem

In an effort to establish cost-effective ‘re-tirement’ facilities for hundreds of chim-panzees no longer needed for biomedicalresearch, new legislation introduced inthe US Congress would establish a na-tionwide network of sanctuaries sup-ported by a combination of governmentand private funds.

But National Institutes of Health (NIH)officials are concerned that the specificityof the new legislation will restrict theirflexibility in developing an effective sanc-tuary strategy, and are also dismayed thatthey were not consulted or asked aboutplans they have been developing since

New bill mandates sanctuary system for retired chimps1998—the Chimpanzee MaintenancePlan (ChiMP)—to establish long-termchimp housing.

Conserving acronyms, the ChimpanzeeHealth Improvement, Maintenance, andProtection (CHIMP) Act has been intro-duced by Congressman James Greenwood(R-PA). Under the bill, sanctuaries wouldbe set up by an independent contractorchosen by the Department of Health andHuman Services (HHS), the agency thatoversees the NIH. Of the HHS budget, $30million would be set aside to establish andmaintain the sanctuaries, and the con-tractor would have to obtain 10% of the

funding for construction and 25% of thefunding for operation of the facilitiesfrom private sources.

As a result of an aggressive breedingprogram in the late 1980s, the US nowhas a large surplus of chimps, which canlive 40–50 years. Chimpanzees no longerneeded for research are now maintainedin laboratory animal facilities, costing thegovernment $7.5 million annually.Sanctuaries, where larger groups ofchimps are kept in more natural settings,are considered more humane and less ex-pensive to operate. Public hearings on theGreenwood legislation are planned forthe early part of this year.

Alan Dove, New York

© 2000 Nature America Inc. • http://medicine.nature.com©

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