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Thanks Greg for sharing your experiences with us --- it drives home how important it is to put on human face on the diseases the scientists are researching. What better way to teach these students that their efforts are not just an academic exercise -- but that they have the potential to bring an end to patients' suffering and give people their lives back. Once again thank you for speaking up for the rest of us. Too many young people are apolitical these days . The future scientists need to become aware that who sits in the White House and in the chambers of Congress really does matter and does effect them. In addition to the political battles for stem cell research, see below for the latest dictate from President Bush on medical research funding. When we asked for more funding for PD research over the years, we've been told by many members of Congress that politicians should not make disease-specific funding decisions. That such decisions should be left to the scientists at the NIH. It appears now Pres. Bush thinks that he should be making those decisions - never mind what the scientists and doctors say. If Bush can divert AIDS research funding, whose funding will be next? .... This story was sent to you by [log in to unmask] from kaisernetwork.org Daily Reports. http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=19049 ADMINISTRATION NEWS NIH AIDS Research Funds To Be Funneled to New Anthrax Vaccine Development, Bush Administration "Says NIH studies on AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases may be shortened in length because of a White House mandate stating that NIH reduce funding for existing research to finance efforts to develop a new anthrax vaccine, Long Island Newsday reports. More than 500 researchers will be affected by the order, which was announced last month and clarified in a June 2 letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee from Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten. Funding to develop a new anthrax vaccine was not included in the $1.75 billion appropriated for bioterrorism research for fiscal years 2003 and 2004; however, Congress last year approved $43 million of a $250 million White House request to fund anthrax research. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that Bush administration officials gave NIH the "unprecedented" order to develop a new vaccine without additional funding, Newsday reports. Fauci added that it is the first time the agency has been ordered to conduct a "major applied science program," according to Newsday. The reduced funding will likely mean that studies on other infectious diseases will be ended earlier than expected if researchers cannot find additional money, Dr. Dan Kruitzkes, an AIDS researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and a member of the board of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said. Most projects are four-year grants that will be reduced to three and a half years, but some two-year studies will be reduced by six months, according to the society. Although an anthrax vaccine already exists and is supported by groups such as the American Medical Association, Congress and the Bush administration have called for new vaccines based on "more advanced technology," Newsday reports. Reaction "We're not happy about it, but we tried to do what was least painful," Fauci said. One unnamed AIDS researcher said the atmosphere in the field is "the worst I've seen in my 30 years of research." Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) on July 11 sent President Bush a letter asking him to reconsider the anthrax vaccine funding policy, but had not received a response as of July 25, aides said (Garrett, Long Island Newsday, 7/28). United States Not Prepared for Anthrax, Opinion Piece Says Although anthrax and smallpox are the "only two biological agents capable of causing mass casualties" in a bioterrorist attack, the United States has not developed a preparedness plan for anthrax, Lawrence Wein, professor of management science at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Edward Kaplan, professor at the Yale School of Management and at Yale Medical School, write in a Washington Post opinion piece. An anthrax attack seems "more likely" than a smallpox attack, and thus a "stronger case" exists for a voluntary anthrax vaccine program than for a smallpox vaccine program, according to Wein and Kaplan. They recommend that the government develop an anthrax plan that would include immediate intervention; "rapid distribution" of antibiotics to those affected; "aggressive education" to promote correctly administered treatments; and establishment of "surge capacity" to respond to a sudden increase in patients (Wein/Kaplan, Washington Post, 7/28). 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