Robert Pear reports in The New York Times that $1.1 billion of the $787 billion federal economic stimulus package will fund research into the relative effectiveness of drugs and other forms of medical treatment.
A council of federal employees will advise President Obama and Congress on the funding of studies that proponents hope will help bring down the soaring cost of health care. Advocates say the research will be used for reference purposes, and not to mandate certain treatments.
“The money will be immediately available to the Health and Human Services Department but can be spent over several years. Some money will be used for systematic reviews of published scientific studies, and some will be used for clinical trials making head-to-head comparisons of different treatments.”
