Ranking Member Johnson’s Statement on NIH’s Office of Science Education
(Washington, DC) – Recently, the National Institute of Health (NIH) announced that the Office of Science Education will be closed and the agency will cease to conduct a range of activities designed to foster health science education among elementary and secondary school students and the general public.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) made the following statement.
“As the Ranking Member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee with oversight for federal STEM education programs, I have pushed our science agencies to set priorities and bring more accountability into their STEM education programs. However, I am puzzled and disappointed by a series of decisions this year that seem to go against reason, most recently the decision by NIH leadership to close its Office of Science Education and terminate a number of programs and activities designed to improve health science education among K-12 students and the general public. I am sympathetic to NIH’s struggles to cope with years of flat or declining budgets and recognize that the agency must make tough choices, but the programs at stake amount to approximately $26 million, less than 0.1 percent of NIH’s total budget. NIH is this nation’s leading public health agency in addition to being its leading biomedical research agency. I strongly believe that programs that help the public understand human health and make positive preventative health decisions from the youngest ages should be a core part of the agency’s mission. As someone who began my own career as a nurse, I can personally vouch for the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I urge NIH to reconsider this ill-advised decision.”
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