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Disability in the News Archive

Hollywood Pushing Health Research

By Jim Abrams
WASHINGTON (AP) - Christopher Reeve spoke of possible breakthroughs for spinal cord injuries and Mary Tyler Moore told of her 30-year battle with diabetes in kicking off a campaign for doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health.

"We are at the point where we can literally buy cures and therapies that we once thought impossible," said Reeve, the actor who was paralyzed in a 1995 horse-riding accident. He said new discoveries raise hope of functional recovery for those with spinal cord injuries. "What if the money isn't there to make it happen?"

Reeve and Moore were joined in a Senate hearing room by a dozen lawmakers and representatives of medical research organizations to urge that the NIH budget, which is $13.7 billion this year, be doubled over the next five years.

They said current research spending is insignificant compared with the $1 trillion in indirect economic costs every year from major diseases. Billions of dollars can be saved, and the future of Medicare and Medicaid secured, if better treatments can be found for such costly diseases as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's, they said.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said 15 percent of the Pentagon budget, some $39 billion a year, goes into research. He questioned spending three times as much on military research at a time when "the Cold War against disease is just gearing up."

Medicare could be saved from bankruptcy, he said, merely by coming up with a treatment that would delay for five years the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's.

"Our past investment in research has led to an explosion of new knowledge," Miss Moore said. "Doubling the NIH budget will significantly broaden opportunities for scientists and clinicians to apply this knowledge for the benefit of those suffering from devastating illnesses like diabetes."

The budget plan approved by the Senate Budget Committee this week would provide an additional $15.5 billion over five years for the NIH.

Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who has battled cancer and seen several members of his family die from cancer, said he wanted to see money from any national tobacco settlement used to increase health research spending. "What we are really doing at the same time is providing more hope."

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