In a little less than three weeks, a federal budget

sequestration, which would have severe consequences for agencies that fund scientific

research, will take effect unless a deal can be made between Republicans and

Democrats. That’s a pretty discomforting sentence to write.

Discussions on the effect of sequestration on

science research tend to focus on academia, and rightly so, since it will be the

academics that are most directly impacted. But that is just the beginning—a

very bad beginning—to the ripple effect that sequestration would have. Private

companies that depend on the research industry would also be hit, and those

companies are making sure that their concerns are heard.

I spoke recently with Janet Lambert, Vice President of

Government Relations for Life Technologies Corporation, a multi-billion dollar

company which produces molecular biology tools such as DNA sequencers, PCR

machines and cell culture systems. Ms. Lambert, her staff and a coalition of

the concerned have been working the Hill, trying to convince lawmakers them that letting severe budget cuts to research-granting agencies like the NIH would

be, to use her word, “craziness”.

“The feeling is that they haven’t progressed,” she said

about her conversations in Washington. “They feel like the House is running out

the clock too far.” She noted optimism in Democrats and pessimism among

Republicans about how negotiations are going, despite the general

acknowledgement that sequestration is a terrible idea. “There are no defenders

[of sequestration] in the land.”

Will it be resolved on time? “The truth is, it’s very hard

to tell.” She adds, "There is a lot at stake."

The voice of Science is one in a cacophony of voices that

are trying to squelch any congressional desires to sail off the fiscal cliff,

and probably not the loudest (that would be the military). But defense of

scientific research, particularly biomedical research, should also be one of

the most powerful arguments against sequestration. People hate diseases. People

love cures. It’ll be tough for a politician to say that they allowed a severe

blow to be dealt to research into treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and

diabetes. And a severe blow it would be: an 8% cut in research funding, up to

25% fewer grants awarded in an already highly competitive system, resulting in

greater stress for established scientists and the depletion of the young

scientist workforce.

And as any Dallas Mavericks fan will tell you, one doesn't maintain a championship-level team by gutting the roster.

The effects of sequestration would not stop at the university level. Many

businesses depend on the “phenomenal bioinovation ecosystem” as Ms. Lambert put

it, which depends on the federal grant system. She noted that business analysts

have already discounted companies with ties to academic research in

anticipation of budget cuts. After all, it’s hard to sell sequencers to bankrupt

geneticists. going off the cliff will not bring down the private science

industry—she’s not worried about that, the industry will be “fine”—but it might

force some companies to make difficult decisions as the economic environment

shifts.

Even if a deal is made by New Year’s Eve, there are no

guarantees of security for science funding agencies going forward. There will

be the ‘son of sequestration, and the son of the son of sequestration’”, said

Ms. Lambert. There will still be a national debt and a deficit even after a

deal is made, and that implies that a long-term climate of fiscal reticence and

pressure to cut down on spending will linger. And although she believes that

the NIH would fare well in a department-by-department budgetary evaluations,

Ms. Lambert didn’t foresee a policy implementation that would grow agencies like

the NIH. As a friend told her, in government, “’flat’ is the new ‘up’”.

Companies like Life Technologies have an international reach,

and have been able to see shifts in the balance of global research power. The

United States, Ms. Lambert claims, is still clearly the worldwide leader in

research, but it is no longer lonely at the top. Countries like China and the

UK are making research efforts a national priority. While the worldwide pursuit

of science "is good for mankind", it isn’t good for U.S. policy makers or the U.S. public, for whom

science leadership has become a badge of international honor. Doing damage to the research budget won't help our competitiveness.

But there is yet reason for hope. The year is not yet over. a deal can still happen. Science is still cool (and always has been!) and scientific research still receives

broad bipartisan support. 

There are ideas out there to strengthen science

funding going forward. Ms. Lambert suggested that, for example, the NIH could

have a multi-year budget instead of the current year-to-year evaluation. She also suggested that perhaps research funding should be

seen in a new light. “There is a lot of interest in infrastructure and

investment,” she pointed out, and suggested that a new budgetary division be

allocated for just that, so that federal investments are treated differently.

Scientific research, of course, is a worthy investment.

The goal, for now, is to “encourage lawmakers to think about

the bright spots of the economy”, and to point out the “great lift potential”

that many research sectors, such as genomics, have over the long term. She

noted that many congressional staffers, especially the newer ones, have greatly benefited from information about how, for example, money for the NIH is

distributed to universities all around the country. And there are more ways than one to educate a lawmaker. Life Technologies and their coalition partners have put up ads. They have developed grassroots campaigns that include opportunities for members of their company to choose to write letters to lawmakers, adding to the larger onslaught of mail sent by the scientific community nationwide. I myself just sent out letters this past week through

invitations from advocacy wings of the Society for Neuroscience and AAAS.

But again, although Science has a loud and provocative

voice, it is only one. And in a negotiation process which, reportedly, involves

many “frank and deliberate” conversations between leaders who moments later go

to the press and talk about how confused and unreasonable the other guy is, the

message of one voice is prone to get lost. Thank you to Life Technologies and

every other group out there who are making sure that national support for

American research remains as strong as it should be.