National Institutes of Health, U.S.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland, is the primary federal agency responsible for conducting and supporting health-related research. The work of NIH scientists has helped prevent disease, improved health outcomes, and saved lives in the United States and across the globe. In 2008, it had a budget of $29 billion and employed 18,000 workers, 6,000 of them scientists. The extensive public information, outreach, and education efforts that are an integral part of NIH activities make sure that news about NIH research is widely publicized.

Improving health care is, indeed, NIH's history. In the 1880s, according to historical records compiled by NIH, Congress had mandated the screening of immigrants arriving in ships from Europe to ports in the United States for cholera and yellow fever. Congress was concerned about epidemics of these diseases spreading from infected immigrants to affect the entire country. Cholera is contracted though drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include vomiting, dehydration, muscular cramps, and collapse. Yellow fever is transmitted when infected mosquitoes bite humans. Initial symptoms include fever, chills, nausea, and fatigue, followed by more serious effects. Cramped and unsanitary passenger ships were likely breeding grounds for these diseases.

Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun, a student of famed microbiologist Louis Pasteur and NIH's first director, isolated the cholera virus in a one-room laboratory on Staten Island in 1887 and helped keep it from spreading into New York City. Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island with these diseases were quarantined. Kinyoun's research laid the groundwork for what NIH does today.

On May 26, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed legislation officially establishing the NIH in downtown Washington, D.C. Soon after, in 1935, Congress approved a 45-acre site in Bethesda for an expanded facility.

As one of 13 agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH is composed [Page 507]of 27 centers and institutes that carry out the medical research mission of NIH. For example, these include the National Cancer Institute, the National Eye Institute, and the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute. Each institute is dedicated to conducting scientific research on a particular disease or a part of the human body, how to reduce people's chances of acquiring disease, or particular health-related societal problems such as drug abuse.

In addition to the work of scientists at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, the agency has awarded nearly 50,000 competitive grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities and medical schools who are seeking cures for cancer, diabetes, and other health ailments. More than 100 scientists who have worked on NIH projects have received Nobel Prizes. Their medical discoveries are put to use by health care providers, patients, and caregivers. For example, in 1977, it was a group of NIH researchers and collaborators who recommended that women begin getting regular breast exams as an early warning against breast cancer, according to an NIH press release. Twenty years later, new research showed that mammogra-phy screenings should be conducted on a regular basis for women in certain age groups.

...