Why You Should Care...

About NIH funding

Let me tell you a little story about how we know what we know about the biggest killer of Americans: Heart Disease. Below you can see the mortality statistics for Americans in general, stratified by year (CDC data).

What you might not know is that Americans have been kicking the bucket because of our coronary arteries since the Pilgrims got off the Mayflower, and going back as far as Leonardo Da Vinci people have been interested in coronary arteries and blood flow to the heart. But up until the 1950’s coronary atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) was though to be a normal, irreversible, and constant part of aging.

Enter the Framingham Heart Study. In 1948, the federal government, under the auspices of the National Institute of Health (NIH), enrolled 5,209 patients from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts in a longitudinal study of heart disease. The goal was to identify any modifiable risk factors for heart attacks, which, at the time, were unknown. The study was funded through the NIH and, in 1971, was taken over by Boston University, which has run it since. The entire original cohort (aged 30-62) in 1948, has since died, but the Study is on it’s 4^th generation of enrollees, some of whom are direct descendants of the originals.

So take a second and think about what you know is a risk factor for heart disease. High cholesterol? Check. Blood pressure? Check. Diabetes? Check. Smoking? Check.

Do you know someone with atrial fibrillation? Wanna guess where we learned A-Fib is a risk factor for stroke? Do you want to guess how we know sleep patterns affect health? How do diet and exercise relate to Alzheimer’s? The Study has been looking at predictive models for Alzheimer’s using Artificial Intelligence since 2004, when we were all still using AOL Instant Messenger.

The Framingham Heart Study is not sexy, and unless you’re involved in Healthcare, I doubt many of you have heard of it. But when I was a medical student, it was THE example for what can be done in research to improve health outcomes for Americans.

So why am I talking about this? Well below are the rates of coronary artery disease by state.

The most successful medical study of the 20^th century, and given the relatively nascent nature of medical research as we know it that likely means most successful EVER), is losing almost all of its federal funding, even specific grants slated for the study of heart disease in the most rural parts of the red states of Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (the RURAL Cohort Study, a branch of FHS). These participants are recruited from counties (Brethit and Perry in KY for example) that, on average, voted for Trump 80-20 in the 2024 election.

It's bananas.

An America without NIH funding is an America that is not protecting its citizens from their biggest single cause of death, and Donald Trump made it happen.