Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 16:14:18 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200006072014.QAA04045@mattababy.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@mclean.harvard.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: senator@kennedy.senate.gov (Ted Kennedy),
        john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov (John Kerry),
        CapuanoHR8@aol.com (Mike Capuano)
Subject: support a 15% NIH funding increase
Cc: allisonw@sfn.org (Allison Wainick)

As your constituent and as a biomedical researcher, I write to urge your
support for a $2.7 billion (15%) increase in funding for the National
Institutes of Health.  This would be the third instalment in the effort to
double the NIH's budget over five years.
 
In the long run, this investment in research would be a cost-reducing measure:
the cost of providing essential services and support to Americans with medical 
and psychiatric diseases far exceeds the cost of the research aimed at 
understanding and eliminating those diseases.  My autistic brother is a case in
point: he is unable to live independently and requires full-time support staff.
My work at McLean Hospital in Belmont is one part of an effort to understand
the neurophysiology of autism.  Generous funding for the NIH will put us much
closer to the complete explanation of this and other debilitating conditions,
which will derive from the confluence of genetics, biochemistry, and anatomy
and physiology.  It's up to us to make the most of this potential for 
discovery.