Bush fails millions of chronically ill

Millions of Americans living with incurable illnesses awoke Christmas morning to find coal in their stockings, left by President Bush and his allies in Congress.

Before leaving town for the holidays, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2008, which increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by less than half a percent -- far short of the 3.1 percent increase included in a previous version of the bill vetoed by the president.

This is the fifth year in a row that this "caring and compassionate" administration has put federal funding for biomedical research on the back burner, where it has failed to keep pace with inflation.

The repercussions of this short-sighted policy extend far beyond those whose lives and quality of life will be cut short. Every American ultimately will pay the price of the further erosion of our nation's leadership in science and the global economy.

The "temporarily healthy" must join with the chronically ill to demand sufficient federal funding for biomedical research. Opportunities missed today delay cures and better treatments that already take years and even decades to bring to market.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose heart is monitored and regulated by an internal cardioverter-defibrillator, owes his life to previous administrations that better understood the value of and were more generous in funding biomedical research.

As one of millions of Americans living with a progressive, incurable disease, I promise you I "will not go quietly into the night." I will not stop fighting for federal funding of the research that promises cures. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

Sheryl Jedlinski

Palatine