NIH awards WPI with $1.6M grant

[leelaplay]

[QUOTE:hvs] I think that we have reason to be hopeful about the NIH

(from wpinstitute.org):

"September 24, 2009: WPI Awarded Prestigious NIH R01 Grant
New Strategies to Decipher the Pathophysiology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

WPI Research Director Dr. Judy Mikovits and collaborator Dr. Jonathan Kerr of St. George’s College in London were awarded this $1.6 million grant by the National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases. This 5 year grant will provide critical support for the ongoing research into the causes and diagnosis of neuro-immune diseases." [/QUOTE]

thought this good news from an hvs post deserved its own thread. Note that it was awarded before the Oct 8 announcement of the discovery of xmrv (but after I think it was 2 closed door meetings where they examined transmission issues). I looked up the NIH grants - in 2008 there were 48,479 awards for a total amount of 22.2 billion! Average amount about 1/2 million. Hope this is the tip of the iceberg of the funding to come to ME/CFS research.

http://report.nih.gov/UploadDocs/T1...Comp and NonComp Awds by IC - 106 - R1052.xls

Also, I'm not great on politics, especially american, but isn't the CDC under the NIH? Could this presage good things to come?

 

[Andrew]

Thanks for posting. I think this is wonderful news.

As far as I know, the CDC is not under the NIH. Also, in the history of CFS, the NIH has thrown more poison darts at us than the CDC did. The person they promoted to CFS expert was writing us off as having mental problem, and making snide remarks about us in public. Up until his death, he did everything he could to undermine us.

What WPI did was very smart. Instead of approaching organizations to help with CFS research, they approached them to help with inflammation research, cancer research, immunity research, etc. Now they have their foot in the door.

And it's not as if the NIH has never given money to CFS research before. It's just that it has been a token amount.

Anyway, I'm very happy that WPI is getting this grant. And maybe things have changed. But I wonder how much NIH is giving per CFS sufferer per year, and how much money they have left over that they could give.