FoNIA Offers Input on 21st Century Cures Discussion Document

The Friends of the National Institute on Aging has offered comments to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy & Commerce Committee on its initial discussion document that outlines specific 21st Century Cures initiative proposals. This document “seeks to continue the important dialogue of the past year, encouraging more discussion from patients, innovators, researchers, care givers, and other experts on the common goal of accelerating the pace of cures in the United States.”  The committee invited comment on the discussion.

FoNIA offered feedback on the proposed 21st Century Chronic Disease Initiative Act, plans to help emerging young scientists, and initiatives related to the National Institutes of Health.

Please click here to read the comments.

 

 

FoNIA Calls on NIH Director Collins to Increase Aging Research Funding

The Friends of the National Institute on Aging has sent a letter to Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institutes of Health, urging for an inclusion of an additional $500 million in the FY 2016 NIH Budget to support aging research. Its FY 2015 budget allocated about $2.5 billion for aging research.

The letter noted, “We believe that this funding is the minimum essential to sustain research needed to make progress in attacking the chronic diseases that are driving significant increases in our national healthcare costs. The institutes that make up the NIH, in particular the National institute on Aging (NIA), lead national scientific efforts to understand the nature of aging in order to promote the health and well-being of older adults, whose numbers are projected to increase dramatically in the coming years due to increased life expectancy and the aging of a baby boom generation.”

Please click here to read the letter.