Thank you for that welcome.
How many of you know someone who’s done a fundraising walk for breast cancer? Maybe some of you know people who have walked for diabetes, asthma or suicide prevention.
I bet you don’t know anyone who’s walked for ulcerative colitis, or adenoid cystic carcinoma, or, for that matter, the latest flu virus with pandemic potential. Or anthrax. It’s a good bet that no one is walking for anthrax.
Yet many of you will end up researching diseases and health threats much like those. Unglamorous. Un-championed by celebrities. Yet vitally important to many people’s lives.
Your efforts will depend on funding. Most likely, directly or indirectly, some of that funding will come from the government. The NIH is the largest health research organization in the world and contributes a major chunk of all U.S. research funds, including much of the most important research being carried out today. Human genome project, anyone? And because it is publicly funded, it is politically charged.
That’s where you come in.
If you care at all about your research, you owe it to yourself to get involved in the political process. Not only is the amount of funding constantly at play, but there’s a lot of competition for the funds that are available.
In short, the grant you save may be your own.
You may be thinking, “I don’t need to worry about government grants—I’ll get funded by a pharmaceutical company.” Industry doesn’t support the level of open-ended research that the NIH does. Open-ended research often ends up being the highly creative, groundbreaking stuff that wins awards and changes lives. It’s one of the reasons that the NIH can claim 19 Nobel Prize winners since 2000 alone. Plus, open-ended research often ends up laying the groundwork for the lower-risk, high-profit research that can make you a bundle at a private company. I think even the most material among you will agree that protecting such primary research is a worthy goal, both for future patients and your children’s college funds.
You may also be thinking, “I don’t need to worry about the NIH. There’s plenty of money coming from the nonprofits.”
When it comes to research, even the biggest nonprofits can’t compare. Take the Susan G. Komen foundation, the largest breast-cancer nonprofit out there. It awarded just over $151 million in research in 2008 and 2009. We’re not sure yet how much its “Buckets for the Cure” partnership with KFC and other partnerships may have added to the till last year. But we do know how much the NIH spent on breast cancer in 2010: $830 million.
Maybe AIDS/HIV is more your thing. The NIH is slated to spend more than $3 billion on HIV/AIDS in 2011. Not even Elizabeth Taylor ever raised that much. Less common diseases get their day too—if your passion ends up being Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, the NIH may be just about the only game in town, with $15 million to spend in 2011—that is, if budgets don’t get slashed.
And those funds are in peril.
You don’t have to be a news junkie to know that the budget is a battleground, and that everything is on the table. During his State of the Union address in January, Barack Obama said he wanted to invest in biomedical research. He said it was to be our “Sputnik moment.” If the harshest of budget cutters get their way, this could instead be a moment in which we sputter and lag.
But it’s not just about money.
It’s also about having a voice. And as an otolaryngologist, I know how important it is to be able to speak your convictions.
If you don’t let Congress know how you feel about embryonic stem-cell research, cloning, animal research and other hot-button issues, pro or con, you will effectively be silenced. And make no mistake about it—your silence is golden to those who oppose you.
Then there are practical issues like visa and immigration regulations. Those can have an effect on research as well. If you don’t let your representatives know they should consider your perspective, they probably won’t. Not because they’re evil, but because they’re not seeing with your eyes. You are armed with some of the best educations and brains out there today. Your knowledge is most powerful when you share it. Share it with a politician, and you may just share it with the world.
I know the idea of politics may be distasteful to many of you. Or boring. It shouldn’t be the former, and it doesn’t have to be the latter.
If you don’t want to personally knock on the door of your own Congressional representatives once a year or so—that’s the fun part, by the way—you can support associations that will work on your behalf and for your beliefs.
Of course I’d like to tell you to support the AMA. We are here to vigorously champion medical research funding among many other things. And we are nearly a quarter-million strong in a system that runs largely on numbers and squeaky wheels.
But you also have associations devoted to the issues of researchers, as well as specialty societies that may be closely tied to your area of expertise. Whether it’s Research!America, AAMC, UMR or another organization, reach out.
Even writing a check can be a powerful act of advocacy.
And I assure you, if you want to assume a more active or leadership role, there are far more opportunities than there are people jumping up to do the job.
A few years ago, a young physician wrote an article likening political advocacy to a cold cup of coffee left on a desk. Everyone pushes it aside, hoping someone else will deal with it.
Associations across the board are struggling for membership. People your age—and beyond—are busy with their families, careers and other interests. It’s all too easy to leave advocacy to the other guys. But the stakes of apathy have never been higher.
If you decide to be the person who finally deals with that cup coffee, you may end up accomplishing something just as important as anything you discover through the lens of a microscope.
And with any luck, you won’t ever have to strong-arm your friends to wear a ribbon, buy a wristband or walk for your research cause. Especially if it’s anthrax.
Thank you.
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