Md. senator links Baltimore unrest to need for health funding

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) linked the unrest in Baltimore to the push to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health on Thursday. 

Mikulski said she was worried about disparities in life expectancy between neighborhoods in Baltimore and that a need for better mental health treatment is part of the problem in the city. 

{mosads}“I worry about zip code medicine,” she said at an appropriations hearing for the NIH. “The disparity in Baltimore this morning between the neighborhood in which I live, called Rowland Park, and the neighborhood called Harlem Park, where they filmed ‘The Wire,’ about two miles from where the disturbances are occurring, is a 22-year life expectancy, even controlling to violence.”

She spoke of “unacceptable” disturbances in the city, many of them by teens in the school system but added she had recently spoken to the city’s school superintendent.

“We talked about how damaged our children are,” she said. “I said, ‘What do you need in the school system?’ He said, ‘Mental health, mental health, mental health.’ ”

President Obama’s budget includes $1 billion more in funding for the NIH, which would bring the level to $31.3 billion. 

Mikulski raised the possibility that even more could be needed. “So what is $1 billion going to get you to help America with what we need to do?” she asked. “I don’t want to pick winners and losers between the 26 institutes.”

Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, said the $1 billion would allow for 1,200 additional grants. 

“We have seen over the course of the last 12 years a significant diminution in NIH’s ability to do research across the board,” he said, noting that funding has not kept up with inflation. 

“Our most important resource, the people doing the work, are clearly pretty stressed at the moment,” he added.