NIH Funding: Too Much for Autism?

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has published a nifty spreadsheet of estimates of NIH funding for research, condition, and disease categories. (Note: this data is a little "squishy"--be sure to read the introductory text about how research was classified into these categories, including that a single study may classify into multiple categories). Autism research in 2008 came up a whopping $118 million. Why whopping? Here's some relativity:

Here are the funding figures for some other developmental disabilities:

$60 million for Attention Deficit Disorder
$28 million for Cerebral Palsy
$26 million for Fragile X Syndrome
$17 million for Down Syndrome
$ 9 million for Rett Syndrome

Here are the funding figures for some major social issues:

$45 million for Violence Against Women
$30 million for Child Abuse and Neglect
$21 million for Teenage Pregnancy
$13 million for Homelessness
$ 4 million for Climate Change

And here are the funding figures for some often fatal cancers:

$96 million for Ovarian Cancer
$89 million for Liver Cancer
$69 million for Cervical Cancer
$39 million for Childhood Leukemia
$16 million for Uterine Cancer (which has a prevalence rate of nearly half the population of the state of Maine)

Just so there's no question here of my biases as I continue, I do autism-related research that could potentially be funded by the NIH. On a purely greedy level, in terms of not starving to death, yes, funding for autism research is good. Not only that, but I want more research that leads to change I care about, like a higher quality of life for people on the spectrum or a fair chance at employment (yes, NIH funding can go toward those topics).

But my biases got quite a reality check when I saw those figures--would I rather have research money spent on autism or on cancer? Goodness, I don't even need to think, please, please fund research on cancer! People die from that!

To throw things into an even harsher perspective, take a read at Jim Sinclair's 1995 essay Medical Research Funding? wherein he responds to a statement about cystic fibrosis having four times more grant funding from the NIH than autism, "Maybe cystic fibrosis research receives more funding than autism research because CYSTIC FIBROSIS IS A DEADLY DISEASE THAT MAKES PEOPLE SICK AND MISERABLE, AND THEN KILLS THEM!"

Perspective time? Remember that 2008 autism figure of $118 million--13 years after Sinclair's essay, and it's only $90 million for cystic fibrosis. Last year, instead of four times more, autism got $28 million more funding dollars than cystic fibrosis.

More money for autism research is so often the cry, but what are we losing if we get more money for autism research? What have we gained so far from all that autism research, how has it actually helped people? Has it helped people? Should autism really be as much of a research priority as it is? What might be the long term price of the short term cry for "more funding for autism?"