More Funding for an AIDS Cure!
Francis Collins, MD, PhD
Director, National Institutes of Health
One Center Drive
Building 1, Room 126
Bethesda, MD 20892
Dear Dr. Collins:
I am writing to ask you to make a cure for AIDS a greater funding
priority at the NIH. We truly applaud the NIH's innovative AIDS cure
programs, but they are underpowered because they are underfunded.
I urge you to immediately increase the funding for AIDS research that
would lead directly to a cure from $60 million (or about 3% of your AIDS
research budget) to $240 million. Young researchers, non-US
researchers, and people with outlier ideas struggle to obtain funding
for their work. Some, especially young researchers, have considered
leaving the field of AIDS cure research because of lack of funding.
As you know, thirty-three million people are living with HIV right now,
and there are millions of AIDS orphans who often do not live very long
themselves. Twenty five million people have already died. As you also
know, AIDS promotes epidemics of tuberculosis and malaria, even among
people who are HIV-negative.
In developing countries, many people who may have access to medicines
this year will not have them next year, let alone every day for the rest
of their lives. And people who have treatment for now in countries like
China or Pakistan are already becoming resistant to available
medicines, and cannot access new ones.
We are at a pivotal point in AIDS cure research, with the number of
promising research avenues rapidly increasing. The NIH must lead the
way.
But right now, leading cure researchers are forced to compete with each
other for funding under NIAID's new AIDS cure initiative because there
isn't enough money for them all. The program, only $8 million total,
should be ten times as big. In contrast, a single AIDS research grant
from California's stem cell agency is $15 million.
The plain fact is that the NIH is doing AIDS research for the world.
This world is unable to treat more than about 30% of people with HIV in
developing countries who need medicine. The rest of them, the vast
majority of 33 million people, are dying, with a lifespan after
diagnosis of about two years.
We need a cure.
Sincerely,
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