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.
