$5 Million ALS Research
Bill Signed By President
The ALS Association achieved another victory in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2 when President Bush signed into law the 2009 Department of Defense (DOD) Appropriations Bill. For the first time, Congress included $5 million in the bill to fund the ALS Research Program (ALSRP) at DOD.
The congressionally established program at the DOD is dedicated solely to ALS research, is the only ALS specific program at the DOD and is the only program focused on translational research with the goal of finding new treatments for ALS.
This is an especially significant victory not only because very few funding bills passed Congress year, but also because The Association and the ALS community overcame a significant amount of competition for scarce federal dollars.
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House Sends ALS
Registry Act to President
Congress took a major step in the fight against Lou Gehrig’s Disease on September 26 when the House of Representatives passed the ALS Registry Act (S. 1382). The legislation, which passed the U.S. Senate on September 23, now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law.
The ALS Registry Act would establish the first ever national patient registry of people with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to be administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The registry would collect information leading to the cause, treatment and cure of the deadly neurological disease that took the life of baseball legend Lou Gehrig in 1941.
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