I sent a message to the folks in Florida several weeks ago. The
theme was "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore".
While we must be respectful when dealing with our Senators and
Representatives, a touch of ire sometimes helps. I think Senator
Gorton of Washington made an interesting point. That being, although
he would like to stay out of the process, the manner in which NIH
allocates funds is for various disease groups is a mess. Until they
develop a better system, he'll cosponsors and vote for funding
specific research for diseases he feels are under funding.
Congressman McDade simply says "it's their job to give direction to
NIH or any government agency. That's what they were elected to
do." Surely they should not be involved the day to day details, but
indicating general direction of activities is not Micro Management.
Finally, I think Dr. Zigmond makes a strong case in the letter which
follows:
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
Finally, if you want to have impact you must visit your elected
official personally. Often, particularly with Senators, this takes
persistent but I've found Parkinson's disease to be a persistent
motivate motivator.
Come with us to Washington D.C. June 18th and 19th. I know it's a
long way but the goal is worth it--CURE PARKINSON'S
