Note:Text courtesy of the Coalition to Protect Research

In 2003, during consideration of the NIH FY 2004 budget as part of the Labor, HHS,  Education Appropriations bill, Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) introduced an amendment to  defund five approved NIH grants because he didn't think that research on sexual  behavior and health was a proper area in which to fund NIH studies.  The House  defeated the Toomey amendment by two votes (see UPDATE  July 14, 2003).  

On  September 9 2004, the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill once again came  to the House floor.  This time, a member who came to the Congress in a special  election in 2003, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), decided to attack the NIH peer  review process and sponsored an amendment to prohibit further funding for two  grants.  The two, supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, included  a University of Missouri study that examined the mental and physical health  benefits of focusing on positive life goals through journal writing.  The study  aimed to determine if self-help tools can alleviate depression.  The second  study, conducted by a University of Texas at Austin researcher, also focused on  depression, particularly among college students, by assessing how physical and  virtual environments that individuals choose for themselves can convey  psychological disorders.

Neugebauer  and his allies, Reps. Mike Spence (R-IN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), mocked the  studies and indicated that the money could be better spent on other "more  serious" mental health issues.   During the debate, Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO),  whose district includes the University of Missouri, strongly defended the study  and the principal investigator, Laura King, who has won numerous awards,  including the Templeton prize in positive psychology.  He scolded Neugebauer for  portraying the studies "in a simplistic way."  Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) defended  the University of Texas study, conducted by Samuel Gosling. Rep. Henry Waxman  (D-CA) circulated a Dear Colleague letter urging defeat of the amendment.

The irony  of the whole debate is that both studies have been completed.  No FY 2005 NIH  funds are going to be spent on them.  For that reason, Subcommittee Chairman  Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH), who in an earlier letter with House Appropriations  Chairman Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), urged colleagues to discuss their problems with  individual grants with NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, took a nonchalant attitude  toward the Neugebauer amendment.  He decided not to oppose it, while at the same  time suggesting that NIH "ought to be cautious about what type of grants they  fund."  The Neugebauer amendment passed by voice vote, with very few Members on  the House floor.  If this had been a court case, it would have been thrown out  because the issue was moot.  Yet, as Hulshof pointed out, the amendment allowed  Neugebauer to attain some publicity for his re-election contest against Rep.  Charles Stenholm (D-TX) in one of the new Texas districts where incumbents have  been thrown together.

This  somewhat anti-climactic denouement hid an enormous amount of work done by the  Coalition to Protect Research (CPR), co-chaired by Angela Sharpe of COSSA and  Karen Studwell of the American  Psychological Association.  The Coalition,  consisting of 58 groups across the wide spectrum of NIH supporters, provided  Congress with huge amounts of information about the peer review process, NIH's  role in supporting research on biomedical and behavioral aspects of health, and  convinced Members not to attack NIH again over its funding of sexual behavior  and health grants.

The House  subsequently approved the bill.  The Senate has yet to take up the Labor, HHS,  Education funding legislation. It is widely expected that the bill will not pass  as regular legislation, but will either be part of a Continuing Resolution or  wrapped into an Omnibus spending bill that will likely pass in a lame-duck  session.