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The local ABC channel here in Pittsburgh called and asked to do an interview with me to air next Wednesday on the 11:00 PM news after the last Spin City episode. Their objective is to put a local face on Parkinson's disease. My objective is to raise awareness. I believe raising awareness is still a major objective for the Parkinson's cause. We have a compelling story and when it is told people are very supportive. I would encourage leaders of local Parkinson organizations around the country to consider approaching your local ABC news people and suggest that they might be interested in a local twist to Michael J Fox's last episode of Spin City. When we started six years ago the annual amount spent on Parkinson's disease research at NIH was $ 24 million. Also a major issue was earmarketing (congress specifying what should be done with the dollars they appropriate.) But things have changed dramatically. NIH is now asking congress to fund a Parkinson research agenda calling for $947 million over five years. There is a high probability that during the next five years, given this increase spending level, a cure or new effective treatment for Parkinson's disease will be discovered. Michael J Fox has tremendous visibility. The attention he focuses on Parkinson disease will help assure that funds requested by NIH are actually forthcoming. What we need to do now, is make sure we have the best scientist, doing the best science. The Parkinson's Alliance is committed to doing that by offering small grants of $25,000.00 to researchers who have a good idea in Parkinson's disease. These funds are to be used to generate the pilot data which is a virtual necessity in order to obtain a large NIH grant. We have tremendous momentum now. Anyone, be it a group or individual, who has financial resources sufficient to making meaningful contribution should do it now. Now is not the time to save for a rainey day. Now is the time to channel all funding possible into the research stream so that that stream can become a raging river of cash and flood NIH with high quality research proposals.