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Does anyone have a clear idea of what happens now? We have given the National Institutes of Health $100,000,000. Are they now charged with any responsibility other than to NOT spend it for any other purpose than PD research? Are they enthusiastic about this, or is there any concern that their previously stated position of not wanting funds coming their way to be earmarked going to be a problem? In other words, how can we help ensure that they will really put this on their front burner? Presumably they have to get organized for this new venture, to staff up, acquire facilities for research, etc. I wonder if they are celebrating as much as we are. I also wonder what direction they will go with the 100 big ones they just got. I think most people agree that the first priority is to much more clearly find the causes. Is it conceivable to any one here that they could blow through the whole $100 million on just that effort? Will they also be spending some of it on research into additional and better medications to relieve symptoms, or is that effort done only by pharmaceutical companies? When this whole effort started we heard that someone supposedly in the know from Harvard said given $100 million a "cure" is likely. Do the NIH administrators and scientists who are now going to be working on this, and who presumably now won't be working on something else, share that conviction - and our enthusiasm? The NIH people are, after all, bureaucrats. I do not in any way use that as a derogatory term. They are, by definition, salaried employees of a government bureau. Who is our watchdog? Is it one of the PD organizations? While I'm pondering, one last ponder. Can anyone think of any diseases for which a cure was found for those who already have it? One can think of polio, small pox and other contagious diseases which have been eradicated by inoculation. But that didn't help the people who already were afflicted. If the result of all of our efforts to get this bill passed is solely the likelihood that fewer people will have to suffer as we have, that is indeed a cause for celebration. But hopefully one of us has a better handle on medical history and can give us some good positive examples of actual cures!! Not Ken Becker, though. I hear he didn't do very well in school.