Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:00:36 -0500
From: belmonte@cns.nyu.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: nita.lowey@mail.house.gov
Subject: H. Res. 83

I hope you'll support H. Res. 83, which calls for a doubling of NIH research
funding over the next decade.  While I am in general a fiscal conservative,
I believe that investment in biomedical research will cut public expenses in
the long run.

In my work in neurological research, I've seen many worthy proposals turned
down for lack of funds during the climate of austerity of the past few years.
That climate has created two problems.  First, the quality of scientific
research in the United States has been damaged as young scientists have fled to
the surer fields of private industry.  Second, the public health problems that
might have been addressed by such research have continued to loom, and the
treatment bills that such problems are bound to incur far exceed the expenses
of research.  Those bills end up being passed along to all of us in the form of
higher insurance costs and higher taxes for Medicare.