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Dear Ivan, Abi, and other interested list members, I, too, am concerned with the number of 6 being used for the number of caregivers in your email to our list because I can only think of one caregiver in our situation, though I can think of tons of people who "care," but what I LOVE is that you are thinking about Udall, which is, of course, something I'd love to see all of us do. In my albeit limited experience, I believe that people do vote as they do for a variety of reasons. Few vote on single issues, altho I, for one, certainly will consider any candidate who is what I term "health conscious" about our nation's health and who demonstrates what I term a "health conscience" and will not consider anyone who is not. We certainly want to reward our friends. In thinking of people who "care," I could not predict how they would actually vote, even if given information as to which candidates are or are not health conscious. If only I could! The real question is: How can we as a community get organized and develop a real focus with effort behind it? Then the problem will become one of how we develop greater support among those legislators with a demonstrated health conscience. We, of course, have a list of those who voted for the Udall Bill, but we don't know how they'll vote when it comes down to voting on the proposal to increase funding for NIH or the Udall Act, embedded in the current proposal. At this point, in my mind, our best hope is to lobby our legislators through phone calls and faxes demanding (a strong but important word) that they vote for the increase and for fully funding Udall. And, then, not to make excuses, but to show some understanding, I think that we as individuals on a list have points of view that must be respected. One is that, just as folks vote as they do for various reasons, folks join this information exchange for various reasons and we have to respect that. (In the beginning I can remember looking only for hope in the way of medical articles until I realized that for me, it was empowering to become involved politically and it gave me a sense of having some control. Have almost decided that the idea that we have any is only an illusion.) Another is that many of us are perhaps overwhelmed by either caregiving responsibilities or the disease to consider really getting involved politically, altho, as it stands, from my perspective, to do so is our only hope, and so I will not give up. I cannot. My husband, the good pwp and caregivers I met at PAN, and the good people on this list and not on this list who have the disease or who care about someone who has it or who may be pre-symptomatic or develop it in the future are all too important to me not to take any action I can to make full funding of Udall a reality. I am optimistic that if enough people do become politically active, it will happen. What I admire about you, Ivan, is that you share this philosophy and you cause us to think. Additionally, my guess is that Mike Claeys and Joan Samuelson of PAN are busy in Washington campaigning for Udall and making themselves available to legislators as this IS THE WEEK! They were also probably there last week doing the same thing, not anticipating the tragedy that occurred. That may explain the answering machine, if it's any consolation. I share your hope that the good people on this list who can and who read this message will call or fax their congressmen either today or tomorrow. It is so important. Sincerely, Barb Brock