Starving the NIH

Very rarely do I find myself agreeing with anything in the Washington post, but this piece is spot-on:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301364.html

NIH-funded research, and associated spin-offs, have been for many years arguably the most potent source of biomedical innovation in the US, if not the world. Yet the Bush administration - which when it comes to tax cuts seems swayed by far more tenuous arguments about innovation and technology - sees fit to reduce its support. The effects are substantive. From my own small circle, I can think of several top young scientists - all very smart and enormously hard-working - who have, largely as a consequence of these changes, now reluctantly left the academic sector.