a couple of thoughts on Micro Management. When I mentioned this to
Congressman McDade his response was its not NIH' s money to do with
as they wish its the government' s money and Congress is responsible
for how it is spent. ITS OUR JOB.
personally I use the following analagy:
I worked in R&D in industry. Every year they would present a plan to
the board of directors. If that plan did not meet with the broad
directions of the company, the board would require modifications.
This is not Micro Management.
Finally I think this letter by Dr. Zigmond addresses the
justification for additional Parkinson's funding:
Dear Jim,
You have asked me to comment on whether I feel that targeting (ear
marking) additional money for research in Parkinson's disease is
appropriate. I am not an objective bystander to this issue since a
large portion of my research has focused on Parkinson's for the past
25 years. However, let me share my thoughts with you.
There is no other neurological disease about which we have so much
information. We know the location of the lesion and the
neurochemistry, electrophysiology, and anatomy of the vulnerable
neurons; we know about molecules that can cause these neurons to die
and others that will cause them to grow; we have an enormous set of
pharmacological tools with which we can manipulate the neurons; and we
can measure almost anything one would want to measure about them. We
operate from great strength.
A breakthrough for this disorder is within our grasp. No one can say
with certainty precisely when. But look at the recent advances in
areas such as growth factors, pharmacotherapy, surgical interventions,
transplantations, and gene therapy. There is no other area in
neuroscience that is as fertile as this one. I assume that it is
easier to understand the value of curing a disease that will affect an
average of 1 out of every 100 individuals over the age of 55 than of
the value of understanding basic biological processes.
Advances in Parkinson's disease have traditionally had major impacts
on many other areas of neuroscience. It served to focus the attention
on dopamine and on the striatum, it transformed research on
schizophrenia, and it introduced postmortem neurochemistry into
clinical research. Money invested here will affect much more than
Parkinson's disease itself.
Large numbers of people are already working in the area and others are
being trained. But in a great many cases the work is being held back
by an absence of dollars. I am sure I am no different from dozens of
other labs, using space that has gone unrenovated' using outmoded
equipment, passing up outstanding students because there are no funds
with which to support them, having fellows slow their work down to
take care of minor chores because we cannot afford to hire aides, and
spending up to 25% of my time raising money rather doing research.
Give us more money and we can do more work. The system is very far
from being saturated.
Summary: In general, I think it is best not to target the majority of
federal research support.. I support the great bulk of federal
dollars going for research projects initiated by individual scientists
or groups of scientists but when the threshold to success is achieved,
a judicious amount additional funding should be allocated to achieve
the goal This is the case with Parkinson's disease. I think targeting
Parkinson's Disease research will significantly reduce the suffering
and associated expenses of those who have the disease, and at the same
time be good for both neuroscience and good for the country.
Best wishes,
Michael J. Zigmond
Professor of Neuroscience
and Psychiatry
