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Glenna McK Coplin wrote: > .... Good marketing techniques have been behind most Congressional > funding and is certainly behind most Foundation funding. High > numbers of those affected have usually NOT been the reason for > success of winning contributions from these money sources.... Good > marketing draws followers and supporters -- even to causes where > only a few are suffering and in need of support. Your points that good maketing is needed and that success in fundraising is unrelated to numbers afflicted are good ones. However, I do not regard the use of numbers as separate from a marketing effort, but rather as part of it. I have seen references to the number of PWPs used to justify increased NIH funding in two related ways -- 1. in data (research dollars per patient) supporting the contention that PD research has long been underfunded, hence unfairly neglected, relative to other major diseases, and 2. in cost vs. benefits projections of how increased research investment can have a large payback in reduced cost of PD to taxpayers. I'm sure some people are less impressed by numbers than are others, but for the sake of the latter it is important to be credible. Also, since it comes down to numbers in the end (NIH research dollars allocated), it makes sense to use numbers in whatever data the allocations are, or ought to be, based on. I think it's too bad that marketing is necessary. The U.S. has the resources to provide all the funding that medical research can use, but not the will to do so. Phil Tompkins Hoboken NJ age 61/dx 1990