Dr. Collins, Please increase the AIDS cure budget to $240 million.
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From: Your Name <you@example.com>
To: collinsf@mail.nih.gov
Subject: Dr. Collins, Please increase the AIDS cure budget to $240 million.
Your Personal Statement
Francis Collins, MD, PhD
Director, National Institutes of Health
One Center Drive
Building 1, Room 126
Bethesda, MD 20892
Dear Dr. Collins:
I am writing to ask you to make a cure for AIDS a greater funding priority at the NIH. We truly applaud the NIH's innovative AIDS cure programs, but they are underpowered because they are underfunded.
I ask you to immediately increase the funding for AIDS research that would lead directly to a cure from $60 million (or about 3% of your AIDS research budget) to $240 million.
The US is spending over $20 billion on AIDS right now; AIDS will consume over half our foreign aid budget by 2016. As you well know, the whole budget of the NIH is only a little over $30 billion. Yet you are spending only $60 million per year in direct research to find a cure.
Thirty-three million people have HIV right now, and there are tens of millions of orphans. A better-funded AIDS cure initiative could help the public understand the need for more money for the NIH overall and could have bi-partisan appeal.
We are at a pivotal point in AIDS cure research, and the NIH is not leading the way. Let's assume for a moment that the reason the NIH is not taking the lead in adequately funding AIDS cure research is because, as NIAID officials have publicly claimed, the science is uninteresting--that the ideas are bad. Is the NIH taking the global lead in generating new ideas? If all the research ideas for breast cancer were terrible, would the NIH stop doing breast cancer research? Of course not. You are the National Institutes of Health, not the National Institutes of Grants. Finding ways to generate and support new ideas should be part of your mission.
In fact, many people disagree that the research is lacking. What about the mouse experiments at USC that are following up on the Berlin Patient case, or Vorinostat (SAHA), the HDAC inhibitor that is already on the market for lymphoma patients?
At this writing, leading cure researchers are forced to compete with each other for funding under NIAID's new Martin Delaney Collaborative because there isn't enough money for them all. The program, only $8 million total, should be ten times as big. In contrast, a single grant from the California stem cell agency is $15 million.
The plain fact is that the NIH is doing AIDS research for the world. This world is unable to treat more than about 30% of people with HIV in developing countries who need medicine. The rest of them, the vast majority of 33 million people, are dying, with a lifespan after diagnosis of about two years. Again, we urge you to increase NIH funding for a cure.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Organization
123 Your St.
Yousville, YO 12345
Phone: (123)456-7890
Fax: (123)456-7890x123
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Campaign (<em>2091</em>): <em>Dr. Collins, Please increase the AIDS cure budget to $240 million.</em>
Learn more about this campaign here: <em>http://www.citizenspeak.org/campaign/aids-policy-project/dr-collins-please-increase-aids-cure-budget-240-million</em>
--
This campaign was created with CitizenSpeak. Visit us online at http://citizenspeak.org
To: collinsf@mail.nih.gov
Subject: Dr. Collins, Please increase the AIDS cure budget to $240 million.
Your Personal Statement
Francis Collins, MD, PhD
Director, National Institutes of Health
One Center Drive
Building 1, Room 126
Bethesda, MD 20892
Dear Dr. Collins:
I am writing to ask you to make a cure for AIDS a greater funding priority at the NIH. We truly applaud the NIH's innovative AIDS cure programs, but they are underpowered because they are underfunded.
I ask you to immediately increase the funding for AIDS research that would lead directly to a cure from $60 million (or about 3% of your AIDS research budget) to $240 million.
The US is spending over $20 billion on AIDS right now; AIDS will consume over half our foreign aid budget by 2016. As you well know, the whole budget of the NIH is only a little over $30 billion. Yet you are spending only $60 million per year in direct research to find a cure.
Thirty-three million people have HIV right now, and there are tens of millions of orphans. A better-funded AIDS cure initiative could help the public understand the need for more money for the NIH overall and could have bi-partisan appeal.
We are at a pivotal point in AIDS cure research, and the NIH is not leading the way. Let's assume for a moment that the reason the NIH is not taking the lead in adequately funding AIDS cure research is because, as NIAID officials have publicly claimed, the science is uninteresting--that the ideas are bad. Is the NIH taking the global lead in generating new ideas? If all the research ideas for breast cancer were terrible, would the NIH stop doing breast cancer research? Of course not. You are the National Institutes of Health, not the National Institutes of Grants. Finding ways to generate and support new ideas should be part of your mission.
In fact, many people disagree that the research is lacking. What about the mouse experiments at USC that are following up on the Berlin Patient case, or Vorinostat (SAHA), the HDAC inhibitor that is already on the market for lymphoma patients?
At this writing, leading cure researchers are forced to compete with each other for funding under NIAID's new Martin Delaney Collaborative because there isn't enough money for them all. The program, only $8 million total, should be ten times as big. In contrast, a single grant from the California stem cell agency is $15 million.
The plain fact is that the NIH is doing AIDS research for the world. This world is unable to treat more than about 30% of people with HIV in developing countries who need medicine. The rest of them, the vast majority of 33 million people, are dying, with a lifespan after diagnosis of about two years. Again, we urge you to increase NIH funding for a cure.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Organization
123 Your St.
Yousville, YO 12345
Phone: (123)456-7890
Fax: (123)456-7890x123
--
Campaign (<em>2091</em>): <em>Dr. Collins, Please increase the AIDS cure budget to $240 million.</em>
Learn more about this campaign here: <em>http://www.citizenspeak.org/campaign/aids-policy-project/dr-collins-please-increase-aids-cure-budget-240-million</em>
--
This campaign was created with CitizenSpeak. Visit us online at http://citizenspeak.org
