ASPET recently signed onto a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and HHS Secretary Tom Price expressing concerns  about the administration's FY 18 funding proposal on NIH, including the proposal to drastically reduce NIH support for facilities and administrative (F&A) expenses (also referred to as "indirect costs").  The letter asserts that conducting high-quality medical research carries expenses, including essential costs for maintenance and development of state-of-the-art labs, utilities such as precision climate control, security protections for handling dangerous chemicals, proper disposal of hazardous waste, and personnel to support required administrative and compliance work, among others. It simply is not possible to carry out medical research without incurring such expenses, and NIH support for F&A helps offset a portion of these real research costs; and a cut to F&A reimbursements is a cut to biomedical research.