 |
 |
Important message from CAMR... Dear CAMR friends: Let me start by introducing myself. As of January 2010, I am the acting President of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR.) What an honor it is to be in this role. Since August, you have probably been following judicial activity which has severely jeopardized momentum of embryonic stem cell research. The court if currently hearing a case and an appeal that will impact the future of the NIH guidelines funding grants in embryonic stem cell research. Information regarding CAMR's action in the courts and all judicial documents are available on the CAMR website at www.camradvocacy.org<http://www.camradvocacy.org/>. While the courts are hearing this case, it is incumbent upon us to encourage Congress to act THIS YEAR to ensure, through the legislative process, that Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research can continue. We are encouraging our members and our friends to contact their elected officials in their home districts and states and urge them to act on this issue in the lame duck session scheduled for mid-November. Below is an action alert that we recently sent to our membership. We hope that you will share this information with your constituencies as well! Lisa Hughes President, CAMR ********************************************************************************************* Please ask your memberships to reach out to their Congressional representatives in their local offices. Most Congressional member websites have contact information for those local offices � phone and fax numbers (see below for helpful links*). Some of the district offices will transfer calls about legislation directly to DC, and that�s ok! What we need to do is get the phones in the local offices ringing off the hook about stem cell research, even if the DC offices ultimately take the comments. We also need for people to go to town hall meetings and other campaign events and make the case in person to House and Senate Members that Congress take up stem cell research legislation during the �lame duck� session when Congress returns to DC after the elections. The message continues to be the same: Ask House Representatives to cosponsor and pass H.R. 4808 and Senators to cosponsor and pass S. 3766 this year. The �Stem Cell Research Advancement Act� will provide protection for NIH to continue to support the critical life-saving research that provides hope to millions of patients and their families. The importance of this �local� activity cannot be overemphasized. If Members of Congress don�t hear directly from constituents that this is important to them, the possibility of Congress acting to protect important stem cell research during the short remainder of the 111th Congress is virtually nil. As we move closer to Congress� return to Washington, CAMR will be in touch with you at least weekly (and likely more often) with messages that we need for you to share with your memberships. We need to build up some serious momentum of constituent interest to have any chance of prevailing this year. Thank you, as always, for your action and involvement. -jennifer Jennifer Poulakidas CAMR, VP of Legislative Affairs *Individuals can use the following websites to link to the web pages of their local U.S. House and Senate representatives. Once on a Member�s website, there will usually be a �contact� link. That link will have information about local offices, including phone and fax numbers. LET�S GET THOSE LOCAL PHONES RINGING!! http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn