To: John Boehner, Speaker, US House of Representatives, Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, US Senate, and Paul Ryan, Chairman, House Budget Committee

REPUBLICANS: FUND AMERICA’S MEDICAL DEFENSES AGAINST EBOLA

In your eagerness to strangle funding for government programs, you have placed the American people in danger. Fully fund now these agencies which are our first line of defense against the Ebola epidemic:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Institutes of Health
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority

Why is this important?

CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the front lines to prevent the spread of Ebola in the United States. They coordinate safety standards for medical facilities and medical workers in the U.S., and recently have updated those standards to deal with the Ebola threat. They also have sent public health experts to help control the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which experts see as vitally important to keeping Ebola out of the United States.

Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority was created by a bipartisan effort in Congress in 2005 to develop partnerships between the drug industry and government agencies to streamline the development of medical measures and stockpiling of vaccines and medications to fight public health crises, including emerging epidemics such as Ebola.

National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical research institution in the world, has been responsible for numerous advances in medical science. It coordinates and funds health-related research in hundreds of universities and laboratories in the U.S. Wikipedia says the scientific community considers the current low level of NIH funding to be a crisis in America, including the possibility that our research scientists will be lured away by China.

If you want more information on this subject, here are facts and figures from members of Congress who are on committees which oversee federal health policy:

Representative Anna Eshoo, D-California, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, reported on CNN online on October 30 that “Despite the tireless efforts of many health professionals, progress against Ebola and other diseases has been slowed by federal budget cuts. To boost our efforts to prevent epidemics, federal investment in biomedical research should be revived. ...

“The trouble is that investment in key agencies like NIH and CDC -- the world's foremost biomedical research and public health institutions -- has fallen dramatically in recent years.

“Between 2010 and 2013, the CDC saw over a billion dollars slashed from its budget. The purchasing power at the NIH, meanwhile, has been cut 10% over the last four years. And since 2010, the Hospital Preparedness Program, which provides resources to community hospitals for public health emergencies, has been cut by 44%, when adjusted for inflation. U.S. global health programs alone have lost over $400 million. ...

“A look further back reveals even deeper cuts to biomedical research budgets. As a percentage of the total federal budget, we spend two-thirds less on research and development today than we did in 1965. At NIH, the number of research grants the agency is able to fund has declined every year since 2004. ...”

You can add your direct message to the Republican leaders in Congress in Comments as you sign the petition.