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Psoriasis Cure Now applauds U.S. Senate for its strong commitment to psoriasis research
(July 15, 2005) Psoriasis Cure Now, a patient advocacy group based in our nation’s capital, today applauded the U.S. Senate for including its strongest language ever in support of increased federal research on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The psoriasis-related language is in a Report that accompanies the Fiscal Year 2006 Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill, and mirrors historic language included in the House Report last month that also strongly urged a greater commitment to psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis research (more on that is available here).
“Both the House and Senate have now spoken, and have spoken with one voice, that the National Institutes of Health should significantly increase its commitment to research on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis,” said Michael Paranzino, president of Psoriasis Cure Now. “We are grateful that Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s Labor-HHS Subcommittee, included this language and stood firmly with the 6.5 million Americans living with psoriasis.”
Psoriasis is an incurable, recurring disease of the immune system that can first strike at any age, causing dry, painful skin lesions that can crack, bleed and itch. Many people with psoriasis also have psoriatic arthritis, a chronic, progressive and debilitating inflammatory disease that often causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling, as well as bone damage. The Senate Report includes separate language urging the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, its National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and its National Institute of Mental Health to undertake or increase research on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, including an apparent psoriasis-autism link that Psoriasis Cure Now wrote Congress about in February. The Report also urges the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor psoriasis prevalence. Psoriasis Cure Now launched a campaign in May urging CDC to reconsider a psoriasis patient count it is preparing to release that excludes all children and seniors with psoriasis.
“For years, the psoriasis community was absent from our nation’s Capitol, which left us in the unfortunate position of having had psoriasis research funding reduced over the last decade, as NIH funding doubled,” Paranzino added. “We launched Psoriasis Cure Now in January to reverse this, and with the Senate and House so firmly supporting psoriasis patients this year, these patients can be hopeful that the federal government will now give psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis the research funding we need to move towards a cure. Democracy works.”
“On behalf of all psoriasis patients and their families,” Paranzino added, “we thank Chairman Specter, Ranking Member Tom Harkin, and all the members who worked on this bipartisan effort to help people with psoriasis. We look forward to working with NIH and the world’s leading psoriasis researchers to implement this united Congressional mandate.”
The psoriasis Report language is available here.
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