What Have Medical and Health Research Done Lately?

Basic, behavioral and clinical scientists across America--research institutes, teaching hospitals, pharmaceutical laboratories, and dental, medical, nursing, pharmacy, and public health schools-- have discovered new ways to prevent, treat and cure diseases and disorders. These advances in medicine are used today by your dentists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and public health officials.

How are Medical and Health Research Funded?

The National Institutes of Health is the main federal agency that distributes taxpayers' money to universities, dental, medical, nursing, pharmacy and public health schools, hospitals and private laboratories across the country, including those in your home state.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Veterans Administration also fund medical and health research. But these agencies can only fund about one in three medical and health research ideas. The two ideas that aren't funded are lost opportunities--opportunities that could have resulted in advances in basic research that open new ways of thinking about the causes and effects of diseases. Cures, better treatments or preventions also may be lost or delayed.

Funding for medical and health research comes from private companies, philanthropies and voluntary health agencies, such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Results of Recent Discoveries

  • The cancer death rate has dropped more dramatically for children than for any other age group. Up to 70% of all children with cancer can now be cured.
  • The level of the AIDS virus can be reduced with the help of new combinations of drugs.
  • The ability to diagnose breast cancer earlier has saved the lives of mothers, sisters and daughters.
  • Nursing researchers have discovered that mental stimulation exercises delay the progress of Alzheimer's disease symptoms, allowing patients to live more independently at home.
  • Having a stroke won't always mean suffering from a disability afterward. The discovery of a "clot busting" drug called tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) can give stroke victims a 30 percent greater chance to recover with little or no disability if taken within three hours of the initial stroke.
  • Available medications and psychological treatments, alone or in combination, can help 80 percent of people living with depression.
  • Treatments for diabetes decrease the likelihood of blindness and increase the quality of life for many of those who suffer from diabetes.
  • A new treatment (hydroxyurea) for sickle cell anemia has increased the quality of life of those affected by this disease.
  • Cases of cavities in the permanent teeth of school-aged children (the single most common chronic disease of childhood) have been declining in the United States for approximately 20 years, and fewer adults are having teeth extracted because of dental decay or periodontal disease.

What is Possible in Medical and Health Research?

  • Medical and health researchers are close to finding new ways to treat, diagnose, cure and even prevent a number of diseases and disorders. For example, research is on the verge of:
  • Better identifying those who are at risk of developing prostate or colon cancer.
  • Identifying new, specific methods for diagnosing and preventing asthma and allergies before symptoms appear.
  • Delaying and eventually preventing diabetes.
  • Understanding the origins of schizophrenia so safer and more effective medications can be developed.
  • Discovering better drugs and methods for preventing heart disease, our nation's number one killer.
  • Identifying the genetic and environmental causes of Parkinson's disease.
    Reducing dependence on respirators for patients with spinal cord injuries, thus increasing mobility and decreasing pulmonary complications.