7 April 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 14

The study by Li and her colleagues [reported today in Science]...examined more than 365,000 [NIH] grants issued between 1980 and 2007....As they report in a companion paper currently under review at an economics journal, each $1 in NIH funding generates an estimated $1.40 in drug sales — a figure that doesn’t include the economic benefit accrued through the development of devices, surgical techniques, public-health improvements or other non-pharmaceutical applications of NIH-supported research.

Former President George W. Bush touted his signature aid project for Africa during a visit to Botswana Tuesday, saying he hoped Washington would recognise its importance....Launched in 2003 during the first Bush administration, PEPFAR,...has branched out...to include provision of services for cervical cancer, which is linked to HIV infections in women....Bush, visiting a clinic with his wife Laura that provides screening and treatment for cervical cancer, said he hoped such commitments would remain.

The letter here by Sean Cahill, Kenneth Mayer, and Stephen Boswell of Fenway Institute takes issue with a recent JAMA editorial in which oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel argued that public health spending on HIV services was disproportionately high....Cahill et al note that greater resources are important to respond to all critical health concerns, and that the prioritization that Dr. Emanuel encourages is ill-advised... Emanuel responds,...calling the authors “irresponsible” for seeming “to imply that resource limits do not exist.”

Days after Melania Trump presented courage awards to 13 women working for gender equity around the globe, President Donald Trump’s administration halted all US grants to UNFPA, [which] provides reproductive health care...in more than 150 countries....This is not Trump’s first move to hamper international family planning efforts. Earlier this year, he reinstated the Global Gag Rule, [which] affects $9.5 billion in US global health funding to organizations working on AIDS, malaria, and maternal and child health.

For HIV-positive eastern Ukrainians, the struggle against Russian-backed separatists isn't just about dignity—it's about their right to stay alive....According to [UN special envoy Michel Kazatchkine,...the most viable longer-term solution may be to include an arrangement for funding HIV and TB treatment in international negotiations...for cease-fires and road maps for an end to the conflict....Unfortunately, the rapidly changing political situation in Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and the United States makes such agreements more tenuous than ever.

The 2016 HIV Diagnostics Conference featured performance data for lab and CLIA-waived tests and implementation challenges such as lack of test options for second and third steps, and data needs for new tests. CDC staff highlighted new guidance for testing in non-clinical settings. Work continues to optimize testing so that infections are accurately identified as early as possible and time to treatment is minimized.

Scientists and policy-makers have long argued that public investments in science have practical applications. Using data on patents linked to US National Institutes of Health grants over a 27-year period, we provide a large-scale accounting of linkages between public research investments and subsequent patenting. We find that about 10% of NIH grants generate a patent directly but 30% generate articles that are subsequently cited by patents.