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We met with Senator Specter today in Pittsburgh. We was myself, my wife Deborah, and Dr. Michael Zigmond from the University of Pittsburgh. We jokingly refer to ourselves as the A-Team in reference to our signing Senator Santorum on as a cosponsor when Joan Samuelson had indicated that we should not waste our time on him. We have a good chemistry and have been very effective. In fact of the 22 Senators and/or Representatives we've seen personally, 18 have signed on as cosponsors. The meeting seemed to go very well. We also had a couple of influential allies present: Paul Lego, the former CEO of Westinghouse Corporation, whose father had PD, and Larry Dunn, the Republican County Commissioner, who is a neighbor and strong supporter of our efforts. Our goal was to enlist Senator Specter as a champion of increased spending on Parkinson's disease research. Specifically, we hoped he would consider earmarking the appropriations Bill which is being considered tomorrow. He indicated he would consider such action and he appeared very sympathetic to our cause. We pointed out how other disease groups had previously received earmarks and therefore seemed to get a disproportionate amount of funding as compared to Parkinson's. All in all we were on cloud nine when we left the meeting. We felt we had done all we could have hoped for. Upon talking to the staff of the appropriations committee we found out that they had already spoken to Senator Specter and that he was infact very receptive of our presentation however there would be no earmark. They would consider strong language in the report but that falls short of what we had hoped. I believe that we did take a step forward with Senator Specter, however, we were looking to make a leap forward. Thanks to all who wrote or called Senator Specter on our behalf. We gave it our best shot. Keep calling and writing Congress as we go down the stretch in September. Hopefully one of the avenues we are pursuing will pan out.