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2002 Public Affairs Committee Report

The Public Affairs Committee advises the APS Council on policy issues and how best to address them. The Committee also informs Council of specific initiatives undertaken by the Committee itself. The Committee recognizes the importance of careful integration of its activities with the Animal Care and Experimentation Committee, the Communications Committee, and with the Science Policy Committee of the FASEB. It has worked closely with these groups to achieve common goals. Likewise, the Public Affairs Committee works closely with the APS Office of Public Affairs both to coordinate activities and to more effectively communicate relevant issues to Council and, when appropriate, to the general membership.

The past year has seen many challenges. Our nation’s efforts to combat terrorism and effect homeland security have contributed to a change in the focus of our governing bodies in their consideration of support for the biomedical sciences. APS and its Public Affairs Committee continue to work with elected representatives to assure their having all the information that they would need to realize how stagnant funding of NIH, VA, and NSF would have a negative short and long term impact on the health of research in our country. Funding issues, therefore, remain a major focus of the Public Affairs Committee, which seeks to extend the impact of its advocacy by making public advocacy by APS membership more easily accomplished.

In the past year a Legislative Action Center or LAC on the APS web site http://www.the-aps.org/pa/action/ has been further enhanced. It can now be used not only by APS members but also by non-members who wish to advocate for a research cause. The Public Affairs Committee and the Public Affairs Office of APS continually seek to improve that site and to make it increasingly more “user friendly.”

The Public Affairs Committee has worked with officials at NIH in efforts to promote training and retention of scientists in integrative or systems physiology. APS advocacy is focused on following the “roadmap” for the NIH future as enunciated by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. That roadmap calls for fostering multidisciplinary teams of scientists who can enhance the overall scientific product from NIH supported research. APS efforts have complimented those of other FASEB societies such as ASPET and AAA. That advocacy and collaboration with NIH continues as does an effort to promote appointment of APS members to NIH study sections that have been newly constituted to comply with recommendations of the Scientific Boundaries Panel Report. While the reorganization of IRG’s and study sections is now approaching completion members of the Public Affairs Committee have received from the director of the Center for Scientific Review at NIH assurances that NIH will continue to seek input from the scientific community to further tailor the peer review process to the needs of that community. The goal is to have peer review closely track and respond to new scientific directions and emphases. Clearly, our ongoing attention to peer review is essential so that our input to NIH can be both timely and substantial.

The Society’s influence is extended further by the active participation of the Chair of the Public Affairs Committee on the FASEB Science Policy Committee. Within the past year the Chair has participated in developing the FASEB’s consensus on federal funding for the coming fiscal year, response to the federal initiative to openly share research results, response to OMB’s efforts to create a “performance evaluation mechanisms,” response to the changes in peer review being implemented by the Research Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and position on federal funding of stem cell research. The Science Policy Committee created a new subcommittee to focus on use of animals in experimentation and appointed the APS representative, the PA Committee Chair, to be a chair of that subcommittee.

It is increasingly clear that the Public Affairs Committee must maintain maximum flexibility to allow it to address the ever-changing needs of our Society. The Committee has extended its advocacy through members who focus on affairs that lie within their own areas of expertise and interest. With new members each year the Committee tends to redesign itself annually. Therefore, to promote continuity it has encouraged continued active involvement of members in an ad hoc capacity as their terms on the Committee expire. More and more such ad hoc members have taken on greater responsibility for critical public advocacy issues. 

William T. Talman, Chair

Council Actions

• Council accepted the report of the Public Affairs Committee.

• Council approved a motion to change the tenure of the Public Affairs Committee Chair from 3 to 4 years

• Council approved a motion to stagger the terms of the chairs of the Public Affairs and Animal Care and Experimentation Committees so that at no time would both chairs be incoming.

• Council approved the creation of a new position—Past Chairperson—on the PA Committee.

• Council approved the recommended changes to the Public Affairs Committee charge as defined in the APS Operational Guide.