After Rejecting Trump’s Cuts, Patty Murray Highlights NIH Funding to Protect Patients & Cures

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, held a press conference at Seattle Children’s Hospital on the heels of securing $48.7 billion, a $415 million increase, for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen biomedical research. Last year in Seattle, Senator Murray heard from leading researchers and others about the havoc Trump wreaked on NIH, Senator Murray pledged early on to tear up Trump’s budget and write a new one—now, roughly a year later, Senator Murray has outright rejected Trump’s proposed 40% cut to NIH.

Senator Murray was joined by Dr. Christopher Longhurst, Seattle Children’s CEO, Dr. Vittorio Gallo, Seattle Children’s Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Rachel Issaka, Director of the Medicine Population Health Colorectal Cancer Screening Program at Fred Hutch and the University of Washington, Dr. Elizabeth Wayne, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, and Brianne Riley and her son Camden, who is a patient at Seattle Children’s Hospital.