Write your congressman and senators

I read Yarbo3's thread a little while ago and was inspired by his point about persuading Donald Trump to adopt the cause of cancer cure as his mission. I doubt that will happen, but I decided to write my congressman. You should do the same thing. Trump has proposed a $5.8 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health, an 18% reduction. His budget doesn't say anything in particular about the National Cancer Institute, but I don't see how they can cut NIH by 18% without hitting NCI pretty hard, too.

Congress will need to pass a new continuing resolution later this month. This would be a good time to write a letter to your representatives in Congress, both in the House and the Senate. It's especially important if they are Republicans. Let them know that this issue really matters to you. Members of Congress pay attention to this kind of thing.

Below is the text of the letter I'm sending to my member of the House:

Dear Congressman Wittman,

I am writing to express my views on the upcoming continuing resolution. I read President Trump’s budget proposal and was alarmed to discover that he is proposing a $5.8 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I urge you to reject this proposal and insist on maintaining and increasing federal spending on the NIH.

I write with a particular urgency. I am a cancer patient who six months ago underwent surgery for prostate cancer. So far things are looking good for me, but there is a substantial probability that my cancer will re-emerge and I will need further treatment.

Federally-funded research has brought about a revolution in prostate cancer treatment, and research continues to bring to fruition new therapies that can prolong life and even cure prostate cancer – and other cancers, too.

In inflation adjusted dollars, federally funded cancer research has declined slightly since reaching a high in 2004. Adopting President Trump’s budget proposals would probably mean a drastic cutback in cancer funding and would mean that many potentially path-breaking grants would not be funded. Please do not let this happen.

This is literally a life-and-death matter to me. If my cancer recurs in five or ten years, better treatments, brought to market because of federal cancer research, could save my life.

We are a rich country, not a poor one. We should not be acting like a poor country by cutting funding for research that will save lives of cancer patients.

Sincerely,
Fiddlecanoe

sent that one.
Andrew

Congressional offices have a lot of canned responses to constituent communications, but they don't have a response ready for everything people send them. So some staffer or intern probably picked the off-the-shelf response that seemed closest to your letter. An irrelevant response doesn't mean they aren't paying attention, however! Congressional offices tend to follow constituent mail and contacts very closely.

Post Edited (fiddlecanoe) : 4/5/2017 2:54:09 AM (GMT-6)

F8,

Nope, it was a Georgia Senator.....I do, however have a letter I'd like to send to Mr. Ryan.

Donna