Dean Selected To Presidential Advisory Panel

Dr. Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, was officially sworn in last Friday as a member of a new presidential panel which will examine federal spending for medical research.

Ebert was appointed last fall to the President's Advisory Board on Biomedical Research a five-man panel which is scheduled to begin public hearing February 25 concerning the Department of Health Education and Welfare's annual $2.5 billion medical research budget.

The board will concentrate its initial efforts on the National Institute of Health which has become increasingly controversial since the rapid expansion of its National Cancer Institute that now accounts for about one-third of NIH's budget.

Critics maintain that the rapidly growing Cancer Institute, stimulated by 1971 registration calling for a major effort to combat cancer, has monopolized research resources.

Ebert said yesterday he was not completely certain of the panel's actual purpose, but said. There's been a concern about the balance of funding in HEW's medical research budget.

Changes in NIH's leadership, Ebert said, caused many people to feel medical research funding at NIH should be examined.

Ebert told the Medical Area Newsletter it was unlikely the panel would call for more medical research spending, because of the present economic situation. He said that one goal of the panel will be the examination of more effective use of funds.

The panel's report will go directly to Ford and then to the Congress, but Ebert said its impact will depend on "what kind of a job we do."