Chronic underfunding of health research is costing Canadians more
than knowledge, says Nobel Prize winner and University of British
Columbia Prof. Emeritus Michael Smith.
Smith has joined a nationwide public campaign, Health Research
Awareness Week, which is asking the federal government to provide
more funding for health research.
“Without public funding Canada will not be able to exploit the
scientific and medical advances of the next century,” says Smith.
“Discoveries, investors and jobs will go to countries with well-funded
programs and skilled researchers will go with them.”
Smith and hundreds of Canadian health researchers, practitioners
and educators will be participating in the campaign which runs Oct.26-30
and is organized by the Association of Canadian Teaching Hospitals.
The campaign aims to encourage at least 200,000 Canadians to write
to federal decision-makers in support of increased federal funding
for health research.
The campaign’s goal is to have the federal government dedicate
one per cent of the $76 billion spent on health care annually to
health research.
Canada spends less on health research than almost every other industrialized
country — about $10.45 per capita annually. The U.S. spends almost
five times that amount according to U.S. federal sources.
Smith is the director of Vancouver’s Genome Sequence Centre, the
first research facility in Canada devoted to decoding human genes.
He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993.
He and business developer Milton Wong, chair of HSBC Asset Management
Canada Ltd., will discuss the economic impact of health research
at a Vancouver Board of Trade breakfast on Oct. 27 as part of Health
Research Awareness Week.
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