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The FAIR Foundation was formed because of the inequities in disease research spending by Congress and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and because of America's organ-donor crisis. Examples of bio-medical research inequities are as follows:
The favoritism given AIDS over all other diseases, including the sixteen diseases that kill a million more Americans than AIDS annually, and,
The amounts spent on the "Health Effects of Climate Change," "Global Warming Climate Change" and "Climate Change" are greater than the funding for each of these: brain cancer, cystic fibrosis, autism, cerebral palsy, cervical cancer, child leukemia, COPD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Crohn's Disease, Down Syndrome, emphysema, epilepsy, Fibromyalgia, hepatitis B & C, Huntington's Disease, Hodgkin’s Disease, the flu (influenza), multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, SIDS, spinal cord injury, stem cell research, uterine cancer and over six thousand other illnesses. As of 2008, the U.S. Government will spend $39 per each person with diabetes vs. $3,052 for each person with AIDS.
The FAIR Foundation demonstrates the need to reform the public policies used to determine funding distributions by the National Institutes of Health and the need for new organ-donor policies. FAIR is an acronym for "Fair Allocations In Research."
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Don't get me wrong, AIDS is still a health crisis ... in sub-Saharan Africa, but in much of the world, diabetes has grown to be a far more critical disease, but you'd never know it based on how much the U.S. Government spends on diabetes research.
I call upon former President Clinton (through The Clinton Foundation), Bush and perhaps even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to pool their collective resources to bring attention to this matter. Its more about equity, than it is coming up with more money. We continue to treat AIDS as if it were still a health crisis, yet we have a looming health crisis in diabetes, yet our spending on this disease has barely budged in over 25 years. You can join the FAIR Foundation (for no cost other than your name and contact information) at http://www.fairfoundation.org/join.htm.
Thanks for the great information about research spending for different diseases. Those are some really though-provoking numbers. Good luck getting that information more widely known.
ReplyDeleteDoes FAIR have statistical (or factual) information NOT on how much is spent on these diseases by government and organizations, but on how MUCH these diseases actually COST society? Patient costs is probably indeterminable, but I would dare say that people with diabetes spend more money and contribute to corporate "welfare" than victims of any other disease. This statement, in itself, explains why the Republic party (and yes the Democrats, too) do not care to spend money to find a CURE.
ReplyDelete(Scott, your recent post about difficulties in obtaining prescriptions because of insurance issues is a case in point. How can the time you spent be quantified and incorporated into the "cost of diabetes"?)
--Brent