NCCAM director

The new director-designate of the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine reportedly is Stephen Straus, MD, Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. The appointment is pending final administrative approval. Under House Appropriations/HHS subcommittee Chair John Porter's (R-Ill.) mark of the FY 2000 spending bill, NCCAM's budget would receive a $17.8 mil. increase over the current funding level, a 36% hike, for a total appropriation of $68 mil. President Clinton's FY 2000 budget proposal requested the center be funded at $50.2 mil. In addition, bill language would provide NCCAM with direct appropriations rather than be channeled through the NIH Office of the Director