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Let's take another look at the figures. NINDS published their FY97 budget in their homepage. That number was $695 million. NINDS receives $727 million for FY97 from Congress. That is $32 million more than they budgeted. It is not $100 million or even $80 million, but it's a nice piece of change. Of course not all of that will necessarily go towards Parkinson's research, but hopefully a significant portion will. I've written to Dr. Hall and pointed these figures out to him. Furthermore, I asked if he could identify how much of is FY97 budget will be in Parkinson's research. I explained to him the melancholy mood the Parkinson's research advocates find themselves in. Yes, we have accomplished a great deal, but how much of a real difference as measured in dollars? Dr. Hall has enthusiastically supported our efforts. His concern from the outset was if he were mandated to spend more on Parkinson's research but didn't get more money, he would have to take from other disease groups. Now we will see how supportive NINDS and Dr. Hall are of Parkinson's research. It seems to me that he got what he desired - more money and no earmarking. I think we can safely say that the Parkinson's advocates were responsible for NINDS receiving this increase. If the majority of the increase is not spent on Parkinson's research, we will point out this to Congress next year as a compelling reason for earmarking. I think that is one of the things we must do differently. We need hard facts. What NINDS does with this additional $32 million will be one fact. As the new budget gets analyzed, we need to take note of the various areas of wasteful spending that are sure to be there. Repeatedly we were asked where should we get the money from? Next year I want to have a list of answer .