Letter to Chairman Tom Cole and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education - Initiative to Secure Funding for Stroke and TBI Research and Prevention

Letter

Dear Chairman Cole and Ranking Member DeLauro:

As Members of Congress who value the critical role played by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in bettering health outcomes, we respectfully request that the NINDS receive $1,660,375,000 in funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. This is same amount as the President's FY 2016 Budget request.

NINDS supports research to improve fundamental understanding of the nervous system and harness that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disorders. Statistics illustrate the magnitude of that burden. Strokes strike 800,000 people in the United States each year, and 6.8 million survivors live with long-term disability. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults, and millions of student athletes and military personnel are at risk for concussions (mild TBI), raising concern about lingering or long-delayed consequences.

Hundreds of neurological disorders, common and rare, present formidable challenges to medicine that are compounded by the complexity of the brain. The requested level of funding is needed to support NINDS research, train investigators in the basic and clinical neurosciences, and seek better understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of neurological disorders.

NINDS is laying the foundation for neuroscience in the years ahead. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. To achieve this mission, NINDS must have the funds and resources for research, training, and development to help build the next generation of neuroscientists. In light of the difficult budget decisions you face, we want to stress the importance of NINDS research in seeking fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system.

We appreciate your consideration of our request of $1,660,375,000 in funding for NINDS in FY 2016.

Sincerely,