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Kidney disease organizations go to Capitol Hill to push research funding
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Advocates from the American Society of Nephrology 21 other health care organizations (listed below) met with their representatives and senators on Sept. 19 to urge Congress to continue its historic support of research funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to cosponsor and pass the Living Donor Protection Act (H.R. 1270), no-cost legislation to eliminate barriers to living donation and increase access to transplants.
“The prevalence of kidney diseases in the U.S. is at a record high – I would even say rampant,” said Crystal A. Gadegbeku, MD, chair of the ASN Policy and Advocacy Committee. “With a tremendous need for more innovation in kidney therapies coupled with a national organ shortage, we need Congress to move both to provide kidney-specific research funding, similar to the Special Diabetes Program, which has led to a Food and Drug Administration-approved artificial pancreas – and to take steps to eliminate barriers to donation by enacting the Living Donor Protection Act.”
In January, the GAO released a report detailing that 17% of Americans (40 million) have kidney diseases and about 680,000 have kidney failure and rely on dialysis or a transplant to live. The GAO data shows that Medicare spends nearly $33 billion on kidney failure, while the investment in federally funded kidney research is the equivalent of just about 1% of that amount.
“This year’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) report about the prevalence of kidney diseases in America and the underfunded state of kidney research should be both a wake-up call and a rallying cry for members of Congress and all Americans,” said Gadegbeku.
2017 year’s Kidney Community Advocacy Day participants:
Alport Syndrome Foundation
American Association of Kidney Patients
American Kidney Fund
American Nephrologists of Indian Origin
American Nephrology Nurses Association
American Society of Nephrology
American Society of Pediatric Nephrology
American Society of Transplantation
American Society of Transplant Surgeons
Children’s Organ Transplant Association
Home Dialyzors United
IGA Nephropathy Foundation of America
Lowe Syndrome Association
NATCO
National Kidney Foundation
National Renal Administrators Association
NephCure Kidney International
Polycycstic Kidney Disease Foundation
Renal Pathology Society
Renal Physicians Association
Society for Transplant Social Workers
Transplant Recipients International Organization