Eliot Marshall
A key House subcommittee last week approved a 1997 Department of Health and Human Services appropriation bill that would give the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a budget increase of 6.9%--more than Congress allowed in 1996 (5.7%) and much more than the 4% the Administration is requesting. The bill--the first step in the appropriations process--would also give the NIH director more administrative flexibility, while curbing the authority of NIH's Office of AIDS Research. And it would partly lift a ban on human embryo research imposed earlier this year by Congress.