July 2011 – Investments in health research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have paid enormous dividends in the health and well-being of people in the U.S. and around the world. HIV and AIDS research supported by NIH has yielded important recent advances and holds great promise for significantly reducing HIV infection rates and providing more effective treatments for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Yet years of erratic funding levels for NIH and declining purchasing power have undermined our nation’s leadership in health research and our scientists’ ability to take advantage of the expanding opportunities to advance healthcare. The race to find better treatments and cures for cancer, heart disease, AIDS, and other diseases—and to control global epidemics such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria—depends on robust long-term investment in health research at NIH.