Americans need to have a well-funded NIH
President Donald Trump’s proposed budget slashes virtually every part of government (except defense). It includes a 20 percent reduction in funding for the National Institutes of Health, which funds most biomedical research in the United States.
I am a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and these cuts will impact not only how much research I can accomplish, but how much my laboratory spends on the American economy.
My eight-person laboratory is aimed at understanding how the immune system protects us from disease. NIH funds support discoveries that ultimately will help treat or prevent emerging infections, such as Zika and Ebola, and also chronic diseases, such as arthritis and cancer.
My patents stimulate new avenues for drug discovery, which might lead to breakthrough medicines with economic benefits. Moreover, just about all the money we spend goes back into the American economy — nearly all of our supplies come from U.S. companies, and my direct employees and the university support staff live and work here in Pittsburgh. My lab is just one of thousands across the U.S.
The 20 percent cut to NIH that Mr. Trump proposes would have serious economic impact as well as put us at risk for important health issues. No matter what your politics, you or someone you love will one day need medicine and treatment. Without the NIH and the research NIH supports, where will you be? SARAH GAFFEN
Mt. Lebanon mill or an orchestra. If a restaurant had on its menu different items that all were mixtures of different types of food, such as Mexican, Chinese and Eskimo, how many customers would it have? And if each customer of a steel mill were told that every order would contain 20 I-beams, 1,000 ball bearings and 600 square feet of steel plating, how many customers would it have?
Yet orchestral concerts often include pieces from the classical, romantic and modern periods in one concert. Why is a smorgasbord of musical periods deemed appropriate? Most people I know who attend orchestral concerts like music from only one or two periods. Perhaps the music directors or conductors think they’re educating us. But after a while, we know what we like. They’re not educating us, they’re irritating us.
Orchestras would do better financially if they pleased their customers better. I have been proposing to the PSO for several years the concept of miniseasons consisting of six concerts each for each of the five musical periods: baroque, classical, romantic, modern and contemporary. This way, concert-goers could subscribe to a musically homogeneous miniseason without fear of being forced to endure music that we know we don’t like. Those few who like all the periods could subscribe to them all. Those who like only one would subscribe only to that one.
The only difference between a regular season and what I’m proposing is musically homogeneous concerts. In view of the PSO’s present financial problems, isn’t it worth a shot? NICK KYRIAZI
North Side
We welcome your opinion
We are longtime Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra subscribers.
We were there on a recent Friday. How strange it is to still have the musicians in tails. Nobody dresses like that. How does that appeal to younger people?
I am definitely a senior citizen but stopped wearing coat and tie years ago. You look at the casually dressed audience members and wonder how they can relate.
I am not in favor of jeans and T-shirts, but more casual is the way of life today.
The least the PSO could do is go to a no-tail tux or maybe dress like the musicians do for Sunday afternoon concerts.
We have an excellent orchestra in Pittsburgh that more people should be hearing. RAY SISAK
Aleppo