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Margie Nestler wrote: In today's local paper is an excellent editorial by Wm. Safire. "Good government in action" The way to save money long term is to cure diseases not to warehouse patients; and if the rate of Medicare growth is to be curtailed, oldsters ought to be given real hope for scientific breakthroughs. Result: Next year we will be spending 12 billion for medical research. The increase over this year is 680 milliion-spending to save lives as well as money. *end clip* Let me consider: 2.6% of 11.32 billion dollars is $294M, so the 680M will exceed the CPI-W increase of last year. However, the medical CPI is more like 10% per year - which would mean 10% of $11.32B which is $1.132B or $1,132M. Thus the $680M is not keeping up with inflation in that sector. Another point is that $54M of the $11,320M spent last year was relevant to PD. That is (54/11320 =) .00477 - which is only 0.477% of the research funding. If we are one million with PD of 235 million population, then we are 0.425% of the population and are getting our share. How many of us are there? However, the CEOs of major companies have incomes over $100M per year! Ronald Vetter,1936,dz PD 1984 <[log in to unmask]> http://www1.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter/