Saving medical research is a no-brainer

THE Gillard government is not the only government facing budgetary challenges. Last year Britain needed to make drastic savings across the budget. Research could have been an easy target but instead stood out as one of the few sectors to avoid any cut.

The reason? "Britain is a world leader in scientific research and this is vital to our future economic success," announced Chancellor George Osborne. Similarly, President Barack Obama declared, in his most recent State of the Union address, that "maintaining leadership in research and technology is crucial to America's success".

On May 10 the Gillard government must deliver a budget that paves the way for a surplus in 2012-13, lives up to costly election promises including the $43 billion National Broadband Network, and provides for critical rebuilding programs in the wake of last summer's floods and cyclones. These are worthy initiatives, but the government cannot overlook equally critical investment in many portfolios, not least of which is the medical research sector.

Australia has a proud history in medical research, with government-supported research resulting in many Nobel Prizes and breakthroughs that have improved the health of millions worldwide. One example is the discovery of immune-boosting colony stimulating factors by Melbourne's Don Metcalf. In less than 20 years of clinical use, CSFs have allowed the more effective use of chemotherapy for more than 10 million cancer patients.

Australians are researching cardiovascular disease, mental health, cancer and indigenous health and responding to health problems as they arise, such as the potential reappearance of Murray Valley encephalitis in flood-affected Victoria, or the rare tropical infections appearing in people exposed to Queensland's floodwaters.

Government investment in medical research also yields impressive economic gains such as the development of the Bionic Ear by Graeme Clark, manufactured for the global market by the Australian company Cochlear. This device has restored hearing to more than 180,000 profoundly deaf people. Medical research is also reducing Australia's future health costs by preventing disease and improving treatments to reduce hospitalisation. With our ageing population, the savings derived from better health cannot be underestimated.

Why then is the Gillard government seriously considering cuts to the medical research budget? Last year the government provided $715 million in research support through the National Health and Medical Research Council. This is the major source of funding for Australia's medical research sector, and pays the salaries of some 8000 researchers. This level of funding equates to a mere 0.054 per cent of gross domestic product, a figure that has changed little since 2003.

Australia's medical researchers are already stretched to breaking point. Last year the NHMRC received funding applications for more than 3000 research projects spanning the full range of research from basic science to clinical medicine and public health.

More than 70 per cent of the projects were assessed by panels of eminent scientists to be worthy of funding, that is, research Australia should support; but for every worthy project that the NHMRC was able to support, two were rejected. This is the status quo.

If the NHMRC budget is cut Australia's health and prosperity will be the casualty. Jobs will be lost, driving our brightest minds out of research or overseas. Research teams that have taken decades to establish would disintegrate. We will forgo the benefit of minimising healthcare costs and fuelling our biotechnology sector. Australians will be denied the benefits of research-driven improvements in the prevention, and treatment of our biggest disease challenges; cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease.

Years of healthy living, especially for the elderly, will be reduced and lives will be unnecessarily lost.

Every government must make tough decisions. But the Gillard government must show leadership by recognising the importance of medical research, maintaining the NHMRC budget in 2011-12 and increasing it in future years.

Australians will rally today in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra to tell the government that cuts to medical research will endanger lives. If we protect medical research, lives will be saved. If we cut medical research funding, lives will be lost.

Douglas Hilton is director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.