Spring Issue 2006

SOT Members Encouraged to Write Congress on Need for Biomedical Research Funding

SOT Council asked the Regulatory and Legislative Assistance Committee (RALA) to develop a template letter for the Write to Congress system to stimulate a letter writing campaign regarding continuing the funding of two distinct and important biomedical research funding issues, the National Children’s Study (NCS) FY2007 Funding and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) FY2007 budget.

SOT Council recognized that NCS is a unique and important study that will have potential impact on future science studies. SOT 2005-2006 President Ken Wallace noted in his e-mail message that the goal of the NCS is to improve the health and well-being of children and the efforts underway in Congress to add $7 billion to the FY2007 budget would fund vital health and education programs. He noted that the additional $7 billion would “put the appropriations committees in position to provide vital increases for NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, K-12 education, higher education…”

The template “Write to Congress Letters” are posted on the SOT Web site, which provides an easy-to-use system for constituents to make their positions known to their Congressional representatives in the House and the Senate. As of May 16, 2006 the NCS letter has been sent by 100 constituents to their Congressional Representatives and the NIH FY2007 letter has been sent by 80 constituents to their Congressional Representatives.

RALA is working with Council to develop more specific criteria for launching all-out-alerts to Congress on specific studies.