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Are you aware
that the death rate from AIDS in California’s and New York’s
newly infected patients has plummeted 97% (b) and 95%
(c) yet AIDS still receives 10% (d) of the entire federal
research budget? The bias towards AIDS has resulted in gross
differences in funding for major killers and rare diseases. For
example, our government is spending $3,084 on each AIDS patient
in research versus the following amounts: $5 (COPD), $25
(hepatitis C), $32 (hepatitis B), $40 (cardiovascular disease),
$56 (diabetes), $136 (prostate cancer), $144 (Alzheimer’s), and
$154 (Parkinson’s). (e)
When one is made
aware that there are sixteen diseases that kill a million more
Americans than AIDS every year one can only shout, “That’s not
FAIR!”
And what is
the funding for “orphan diseases”? An orphan disease is a rare
illness which has not been "adopted" by the pharmaceutical
industry because it provides little financial incentive for the
private sector to make and market new medications to treat or
prevent it. For these diseases it is especially important for
the government to step in with significantly greater research
funding.
There are
six thousand rare diseases such as Myasthenia Gravis,
Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome, Primary Biliary Cirrhosis,
Cerebrotendinous Xanthoma, Wegener’s Granulomatosis, Graves’
Disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, hemophilia, Gaucher Disease,
Goldenhar Syndrome, Autism and Addison’s Disease. The total
governmental orphan-disease research allocation is $1.2 billion,
(d) which is only $200,000, on average, for each disease. That
is grossly insufficient.
The research
allocation of $2.933 billion on one disease, HIV/AIDS, is just
the tip of the iceberg. The increase in funding for AIDS since
1999 – just the increase – is greater than the 2005 budget for
EVERY disease except cancer and CVD. Although the above
statistics involve disease research, one cannot help but notice
that at present AIDS funding levels, in two more years one will
be able to say, “The total amount spent on all AIDS programs is
1/5th of a Trillion dollars (f).
“But AIDS is a
pandemic and it deserves more funding!” AIDS activists argue.
What do they need: more research dollars? No, they need the
exact same thing that has resulted in the 97% and 95% decrease
in California’s and New York’s AIDS deaths: namely, the
effective drugs that have been developed, prevention education
and harm reduction policies (clean syringes for IV drug users).
I am a proud
member of The FAIR Foundation (g) – “FAIR” stands for "Fair
Allocations in Research." Along with myself, there are thousands
of others in all fifty states from Maine to Hawaii who are
coming together through the FAIR Foundation to alert America and
our politicians on the need for change in our government’s
research funding policies.
“FAIR” believes a
disease’s mortality rate should be given emphasis in determining
allocations, and other secondary factors should be utilized to
insure diseases that cause great suffering but have low
mortality rates, like orphan diseases, will also receive
increased (h) dollars. Research funds should not be allocated
based on Hollywood popularity or political correctness.
It is now time to
redirect funding to diseases that are currently receiving
billions less than AIDS, including the sixteen (i) that kill
over a million more Americans than AIDS annually, and to orphan
diseases. Please endorse The FAIR Foundation’s efforts to put an
end to AIDS favoritism and recommend that all citizens join
their organization in demanding research funding that is fair
and equitable for all.
Send the message above to President Bush NOW by copying and
pasting it and using the “GO” button on this page.
After you do that,
JOIN The FAIR Foundation today (FREE) at
http://www.fairfoundation.org/join.htm.
Footnotes:
a. http://www.fairfoundation.org/update.htm
b. http://fairfoundation.org/quiz/quizanswer.htm
c. http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/hivaids/aidsny_01/section17.pdf
d. http://www.fairfoundation.org/nih.htm
e. http://www.fairfoundation.org/factslinks.htm
f.
http://www.kff.org/hivaids/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=33622
g. http://www.fairfoundation.org/
h. http://fairfoundation.org/factors.htm
i. http://www.fairfoundation.org/thesixteen.htm
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