[New initiatives promote clinical research]

The problems of clinical research have now attracted the attention of leading research administrators in the USA. At a recent conference these problems were discussed and the Association for Patient Oriented Research (APOR) was created. One of the major problems was considered to be difficulties in recruiting clinical researchers, but another was the existence of economic obstacles to pathophysiological research based on observations in patients. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) are now making energetic efforts to improve this situation. Congress has approved a doubling of NIH resources over a limited period, a major part of the increase to be allotted to clinical and physiological research. The argument used to obtain Congress approval was that new and powerful advances in technology will facilitate an understanding of the pathogenesis of prevalent diseases, and thus improve treatment efficacy, though achieving these goals will necessitate substantial reinforcement of clinical and physiological research.