Subject: URGENT: Help keep the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board / Trust Program (SCRIP) alive
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:08:09 -0500

Dear Friends,

I am asking for your help in stopping the "phasing out" of the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board / Trust Program (SCRIP). Funding for the program, administered by the state Department of Health, is generated by a surcharge on penalties for traffic violations. More than $54 million in research grants have been awarded since 1998. The Governor's Executive Budget for 2010-2011 proposes the elimination of the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program, effective April 1, 2010.

Please write or email just a few lines or use the sample letter below to the following legislators asking that they NOT SUPPORT Governor Paterson’s budget proposal to terminate the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRB).

Governor David A. Paterson
New York State
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
Phone Number: 518-474-8390
Email: http://161.11.121.121/govemail

Senator Carl Kruger
Chairman
NYS Senate Finance Committee
913 Legislative Office Building
Albany, New York 12247
Email: kruger@senate.state.ny.us
Phone Numbers: Albany Number: 518-455-2460 / Brooklyn Number: 718-743-8610

Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell, Jr.
Chairman
NYS Assembly Ways and Means Committee
923 Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12248
Email: FarrelH@assembly.state.ny.us
Phone Numbers: Albany Number: 518-455-5491 / NYC Number: 212-234-1430

You can locate your Senator or Assembly person by using the following links.

http://www.nysenate.gov/ <<<<<locate the Senator who represents you.
http://assembly.state.ny.us/ <<<<<locate the Assembly person who represents you.

Here’s a sample letter that you could use to send to Governor Paterson, Senator Carl Kruger and Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell, Jr.

Dear Senator/Assembly Person;

I am writing in regards to governor Paterson's 2010-2011 budget proposal to terminate the spinal cord injury research board/trust(SCRIB) program.

The Spinal Cord Injury Research Board / Trust Program (SCRIP) has funded over $54 million in Spinal Cord Injury research in New York State since being enacted on July 14, 1998. The program has also created hundreds of good jobs all across New York State and has helped to enlarge the body of critical knowledge that will someday, I believe, lead to a cure for Spinal Cord Injury paralysis and other neuro maladies.

I urge you NOT TO SUPPORT the proposal to terminate this one of a kind unique program.

Not only has this research program been a model for similar programs enacted in other states but it has given HOPE to the thousands of individuals suffering daily with devastation Spinal Cord Injury paralysis that live in New York State, many in your own district.

I appreciate your support and help regarding this matter.

__________________________________________________ ________

Too many good programs are on the cutting room floors across America because of the economic downturn the U.S. has faced recently. We need to fight to keep these programs alive and going strong. There is a lot of waste in government and politics but medical research is not one of them. I look forward to the day when there is no cancer, no spinal cord injuries, where no one is deaf and no one is disabled because we have found the cures or how to fix our disabilities.