The ASM has endorsed the Unified Statement on Research, drafted by a large coalition of scientific organizations, which urges Congress and the Administration to double the current level of federal investment in research within the next 10 years starting with fiscal year 1999. More than one hundred scientific, engineering, mathematical, and educational societies have endorsed the statement that will be sent to all members of Congress. The scientific societies will also be holding a series of meetings with the Administration and Congress to discuss increased federal investment in research. Currently, the United States is under investing in research. For each fiscal year from 1970 to 1995, the United States expended less, as a percentage of the gross domestic product, on nondefense research and development than Japan, or Germany.
On October 8, Stanley Falkow, President of the ASM, met with Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), as part of a select group of society presidents representing fifteen societies that have endorsed the Unified Statement, to discuss the doubling of the federal investment in research and its implications for the microbiological sciences. Gramm and Leiberman are supportive of the statement and are drafting authorizing legislation. For more information please contact the the Public Affairs Office at ASM.
Alice Weissfeld, Chair of the Committee on Professional Affairs, PSAB, testified on behalf of the Coalition to Preserve Safe Patient Testing before the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) on September 12, 1997. CLIAC was considering testimony from various organizations and accrediting bodies on the effectiveness and impact of the CLIA ‘88 regulations. The ASM, and ten organizations, representing nearly 200,000 clinical laboratory professionals, and small and large independent clinical laboratories endorsed the statement (American Association for Clinical Chemistry, American Clinical Laboratory Association, American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, American Society of Clinical Pathologists, Association of State and Territorial Public Health Laboratory Directors, American Medical Technologists, American Association of Bioanalysts, Clinical Laboratory Management Association and the International Society for Clinical Laboratory Technology).
The Coalition testimony focused on the needs of patients in physicians office laboratories (POLs), hospitals, or independent laboratories to receive quality laboratory care with the appropriate oversight. The Coalition supports one of the basic tenets of the law which is that all testing facilities, regardless of location, must follow accepted, safe laboratory practices when performing patient testing. Weissfeld noted in her testimony that, "if POLs were exempt from meeting CLIA requirements, over 50% of the laboratories performing diagnostic testing on patients in this country would not be subject to any type of oversight or standards". Inspection data from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), indicates that POLs have a much higher inspection deficiency or citation rate than other facilities.
The Coalition statement also emphasized a study recently conducted by the State of California, demonstrating that POLs had a significantly higher failure rate in proficiency testing than other laboratories. Another recently published study the Coalition mentioned appeared in the International Journal of STD and AIDS and demonstrated the importance of maintaining qualified and trained personnel to perform infectious disease testing in order to receive accurate results. The Coalition stated its opposition to any legislative or regulatory efforts to remove POLs or any other testing entity from the safeguards offered the public through CLIA. For a copy of the coalition statement contact the Office of Public Affairs or visit the ASM home page.
ASM, along with representatives from other clinical laboratory organizations, met with Judy Yost, Director, Division of Outcomes and Improvements, Center for Medicaid and State Operations, to discuss concerns raised by the Federal Register publication on August 29, 1997 of an update to the CLIA regulations fee schedule. The new fees become effective January 1, 1998 and will be included in the laboratories regular biennial billing cycle. No special assessments or collection procedures will occur . The new CLIA fee schedule ushers in an initial registration fee of $100 when a laboratory first registers with HCFA and then implements a new set of certificate fees ranging from $150 to $7,940, depending on a laboratory's volume and number of diagnostic specialties. As mandated by Congress, the CLIA fees collected by the government must cover the costs of administering the program. Amy Melnick, Manager, Office of Public Affairs represented ASM at the meeting. For a copy of the Regulatory Notice contact the Office of Public Affairs or visit the ASM home page.
The ASM Office of Public Affairs has begun work on a survey of recent doctoral recipients. The ASM has received a subaward grant, from the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, in cooperation with the National Science Foundation, to conduct a survey on recent doctoral graduates. The survey will deal with the doctorates' experiences searching for a job after graduation. Letters requesting contact information of recent Ph.D. recipients in microbiology have been sent to the Department Chairs in Microbiology, Bacteriology, Biology/Biological Sciences, Immunology, Medical Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Virology. The survey will be mailed to the Ph.D. recipients starting in January and the results will be available sometime in mid 1998. The results will be published on the ASM Home Page.
The Agricultural Research Institute held its annual meeting titled "Agricultural Research: Funding Now to Ensure Food for the Future" on October 6-7. The meeting centered around the difficulties the agricultural community faces with regard to increasing federal funding for agricultural research, increasing food production and the research challenges scientists will face, and the status of the Reauthorization of the Research Title. Linda Murphy, manager of public affairs, attended the meeting.
On 17 September, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) sent correspondence to the conference committee of the Agriculture Appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998 (FY 1998) concerning funding for the President's Food Safety Initiative. Earlier this year, the President announced a multi-agency food safety initiative to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness in the U.S. The President proposed funding the initiative at a level of $43 million in FY 1998. Of the $43 million, approximately $9.2 million would be funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prior to conference committee, the Senate and House appropriators provided only half the funds requested for the USDA portion of the initiative. The ASM urged all members of the conference committee to fully fund the Department of Agriculture's portion of the initiative at $9.2 million. A copy of the correspondence is available on the ASM Home Page.
Gail Cassell, Chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham and Chair of ASM's Public and Scientific Affairs Board, has been selected to serve on the Committee for the National Research Council's (NRC) upcoming study of personnel and training needs in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. This study is the eleventh in the ongoing series of congressionally mandated studies conducted by the NRC for the National Institutes of Health since 1975. It is designed to assess the nation's future needs for biomedical scientists and make recommendations for how the National Research Service award program can best play its mandated role of training researchers to meet those needs.
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Created: December 12, 1997
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