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Attn: Ronald Vetter Geeeee... with all those statistical figures, I suuuuure hope ya aren't using one of them OLD Pentium chips! <grin> And HEY.... You forgot to break it down to how much WE (the individuals) who have the diseases would get IF instead of spending all that money on research, it was evenly divided up amongst each of us. I calculate (swiftly counting on fingers...) that amount would be $2,576.935.24 per person! WOWIE!! I could live with that AND PD very well! (See what happens to a formerly good mind when it's deprived of sleep 2 nites running?) <grin> Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Disease - Information Exchange Network on behalf of Ronald F. Vetter Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 7:52 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: re Safire editorial 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/