STAT: This NIH program is crucial to global health. And its future is in danger
Arthur L. Reingold, professor and division head of the Department of Epidemiology and distinguished chair emeritus in global public health and infectious diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, and Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health at McGill University

“…[Eliminating the NIH’s Fogarty International Center] would be a big mistake for the United States and the rest of the world. The center … has initiated and sustained research around the globe aimed at fighting polio, tuberculosis, AIDS, and other infectious diseases, as well as focusing on global environmental health, bioethics, noncommunicable diseases, and more. Through more than 400 research and training projects, the center has trained well over 5,000 scientists worldwide and involved more than 100 American universities. This is an incredible global footprint, by any metric. … The training provided by these programs has supported many of the pivotal studies of HIV/AIDS prevention, control, and treatment strategies that have since become the cornerstone of highly successful interventions that have helped stem the tide of the global pandemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and related conditions. … [T]he Fogarty International Center initiated equally successful collaborative research training initiatives focused on emerging infectious diseases, environmental and occupational illnesses, reproductive health, and noncommunicable diseases, among others. … Eliminating the center will not make America great again. On the contrary, it will greatly diminish the tremendous contributions to global health made by America and significantly undermine the global health field. We urge the Congress to recognize this fact and do everything possible to protect the Fogarty Center and the NIH” (3/29).