On Dec. 20, 2019 President Trump signed into law a legislative package that, among many other national budget items, included a $2.6 billion, or 7 percent, budget increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2020, as well as a $636 million budget increase for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a $91 million budget increase for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The increases at NIH are expected to be spread out among the institutes and centers.
The increases headed off proposed cuts and were the result of bipartisan negotiations.
The same bill also included language to require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the economic costs of untreated or undiagnosed rare diseases.