An active focus in public affairs was regarded as necessary in order to perpetuate the national biomedical research enterprise. Following the halcyon days of the sixties and early seventies, the interest of research societies in public affairs, however, became acute as the costs of biomedical research began greatly to exceed the annual increases in the federal funds budgeted to support it. Nor were such funds sufficient to support the increasing number of biomedical investigators who were being trained with funds support from the same federal budget to perform the research. The budgetary threat to the national biomedical research effort has continued through the eighties and into the nineties. At the present time any prioritization of these three should list them in reverse order.
Public affairs has first place priority.
At least one each year is the Annual Federal Funding Consensus Conference at which specific recommendations are made for federal research funding in the biomedical and related life sciences for the next fiscal year. Glaxo Pharmaceutical Inc. Who, as a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, reported on new policy developments in the Clinton Administration, Congress, academia, and private industry. In 1994, OPAR organized the Coalition of Biomedical Scientists, a group of more than 30 separate organizations with a combined membership of more than 250,000 scientists. Letters explaining the coalition's position on indirect costs and funding issues have been sent to key Clinton Administration officials, as well s to members of Congress. OGL focuses most heavily on educating members of Congress and Administration officials about the role that federally supported biomedical research plays in increasing knowledge of human disease in both treatment and prevention, thus improving the health of the nation and contributing to its economic growth.