Governor Grey Davis of California just authorized second million for SCI Research

[Wise Young]

As many of you know, the Roman Reed Bill was approved last year with $1 million for spinal cord injury research in California. This year, the Quest for Cure group has been working very hard to get a second million. This was just signed by the governor!

[Curt Leatherbee]

If more States would do this kind of thing. I guess some of it could be because California has such a high SCI Population.

[Wise Young]

Several states have passed laws that fund spinal cord injury research. The first states to do so were Florida and Kentucky. Florida gives about $1 million each to Miami Project and to the University of Florida. I don't know what the current budget at Kentucky is but that fund initiated spinal cord injury research at the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville and both now have very active spinal cord injury programs. New York was the next, collecting $15 from each speeding ticket and they now have a budget of over $8 million per year. New Jersey passed their law collecting $1 per ticket (all types) and funds about $3.5 million of research each year, going to nearly a dozen laboratories in the state. Several other states recently passed legislation to fund spinal cord injury research, including Maryland, Indiana, and Missouri. Several states have passed legislation that is not yet supported by large budgets but may grow, i.e. Oregon, Connecticut. Legislation is close to passage in Minnesota, Ohio, and Illinois. Legislation is being proposed in Colorado and other states.

All this activity is due to the Quest for Cure that has been actively lobbying for state funding of spinal cord injury research over the past four years. The group (mostly people with spinal cord injury working out of their homes) is responsible for over $25 million per year of state funding for spinal cord injury research. Given that the NIH funds only about $60 million of spinal cord injury research every year, this is a very substantial boost to total spinal cord injury research in this country.

Wise.