Your Support Needed to Keep Funding at NIH

[Guest guest]

Dear Folks:

As you know, CLL remains an incurable disease. The ONLY thing that

is going to save lives is medical research.

Funding as currently stands for fiscal year 2004 will not stay at

current levels in the National Institutes of Health.

This is the last opportunity this year we have to make sure funding

is not cut! Final negotiations are expected this week in the House

and Senate conference committees.

Please go to these websites to see if your Senators and Congressman

have signed up to maintain NIH funding.

Scientists say that we need 8-10 percent increase just to stay up

with inflation and changes in priorities for National defense funding

for bioterrorism.

There are letters circulating in the House and Senate of legislators

supporting this increase. In the House, Bell of Texas and Mark

Foley of Florida are sponsoring it. In the Senate, and

Dianne Feinstein are sponsoring it.

If your Senators and Representatives have signed the letter, you

don't need to contact them.

However, PLEASE CONTACT THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SIGNED!!!

Here are the House members who have signed:

http://www.hematology.org/government/action_alerts/alert_092903B.doc

Here are the Senators who have signed:

http://www.hematology.org/government/action_alerts/alert_092903C.doc

If your representatives aren't on this list, please go to

www.senate.gov or www.house.gov to get the e-mail address, mailing

address or phone number to contact these people.

Please do this as soon as possible!

*********

Here are some talking points:

I'd like you to support the " Dear Colleague " letter in the House or

Senate that urges an 8-10 percent increase in the final conference

bill for funding in 2004 for the National Institutes of Health.

(The House letter is the 'Capps-Bell-Foley-Leach' " Dear Colleague "

letter.

For the Senate it is the '-Feinstein' " Dear Colleague " letter)

Emphasize that you are affected by Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, an

incurable disease, and medical research is vital to save your life

and the life of other CLL patients.

Research into CLL may very well help research into all cancers, since

CLL can be tracked quickly and easily, with a simple blood test.

Current proposed levels won't allow for more research, and another

year will go by that we can't afford. The dollar amounts are small,

but will pay big dividends.

About 40,000 Americans are living with this fatal disease, and 7,500

more are diagnosed every year.

Thanks!!!