Medical Schools and Teaching Hospitals Make the Case for Research Funding

At a National Press Club event Oct. 21, 2009, leaders of the nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals joined with patients, scientists, doctors, and industry leaders to thank Congress and the Obama administration for the medical research funding included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and to urge sustained and significant annual budget increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The event helped marked National Medical Research Day and was organized by ResearchMeansHope.org—a campaign to raise public awareness of the critical need for continued growth in federal medical research funding. The AAMC is a founding sponsor of the effort.

"Medical research is a wide lane on the road to economic recovery," said Edward D. Miller, M.D., dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine and chair of the ResearchMeansHope.org campaign. "It is simply one of the best investments we can make in our future. And for patients and their families, research really does mean hope."

Patients speaking at the conference underscored the benefits of NIH research.

"When I heard I had diabetes and would have to take shots for the rest of my life, I began to cry," said 12-year-old Chloe Lamprecht, a volunteer with the American Diabetes Association, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "My chances of going blind or losing a limb are real, and that scares me.... But diabetes management is getting easier, and researchers and scientists believe a cure could be found in my lifetime."

Olivia Grace Jones, 5, who at six months old was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, also attended the event with her parents, Schonay Barnett-Jones and Kevin Jones. The family volunteers for the American Heart Association.

"Twenty years ago, that diagnosis probably would have condemned Olivia to death," said Barnett-Jones. "But thanks to the research that goes on every day, and to all our committed scientists and doctors, we have a thriving, vivacious kindergartner."

During his remarks, former Congressman Billy Tauzin, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spoke about his own experiences battling cancer, and revealed that he was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Tauzin called on members of Congress to keep the momentum of ARRA going with NIH budget increases.

"Seventy percent of the world's research happens in the United States, and that's because America believes in research," Tauzin said. "We are the envy of the world. And we in America are mistaken if we lose this.

"When I was in Congress, we doubled the budget for NIH, but then watched it slowly slip back," Tauzin continued. "We take pride in the fact that Congress recognizes the importance of research. But you can't win this war with $10 billion."

AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., also emphasized the importance of a sustained investment in medical research.

"The stimulus was the right thing to do, and it came at the right time," Kirch said. "But it was a short-term intervention. If we think the stimulus has done it all, that would be devastating."

The ResearchMeansHope.org campaign is sponsored by the AAMC, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Johns Hopkins University, and more than 40 other organizations. In addition to the Oct. 21 press conference, the campaign published a full-page ad in today's Washington Post thanking the administration and Congress for the $10.4 billion in Recovery Act funding for NIH research and calling for sustained increases in NIH funding.

For more information about ResearchMeansHope.org and the many benefits of NIH-supported research, go to www.ResearchMeansHope.org.

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