reynardo | A copy of the letter I am about to print out and send to various politicians.

With changes where necessary - when I'm sending it to the PM, it'll obviously not be asking her to ask herself...

Dear Whichever person it is

Forty years ago, a parent who heard the horrible news that "your child has cancer" heard a death sentence. Today, many of those cancers have survival rates up to 90%. So much of this is due to the results that Medical Research has given us.

I understand that the Government is aiming to cut a great amount from the funding available for medical research. I am writing to you to ask you to ask the Prime Minister and Treasurer to change their minds, and to instead increase funding to this terribly important and income-generating area.

A 2008 Access Economic study found that every dollar invested in Australian health research earned a return of $2.17 on average, with some research returning much more. This was a combination of health benefits for the people who were helped by the research, and actual revenue produced by selling, patenting and applying the actual results. If the Medical Research budget is cut by $400 million, then that would translate to a loss of nearly a billion dollars to the Australian economy.

In addition, a recent investigation at the University of Michigan Medical School showed that every dollar of funding brought in by U-M researchers has an economic ripple effect through local spending by the scientists, staff and students whose salaries and research activities are funded by the grants, as well as the purchase of supplies and ancillary services provided by U-M units and others who keep laboratories running. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, for every dollar directly spent by a medical school or teaching hospital, an additional $1.30 is "re-spent" on other businesses or individuals, resulting in a total impact of $2.30 per dollar.

That's a return in local economical effects, long-term benefits, health savings and result revenue of over 300%. That's one hell of a good return.

Thirdly, decreasing medical research now would cut out possible research positions for young and upcoming scientists who are looking for their first research positions. Australian-based world-class research institutions such as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the Vision Cooperative Research Centre would be forced to only authorise research by established professionals with excellent track-records, and would be unable to nurture and support the upcoming brains who will form our top-level research teams in ten and twenty years. By discouraging these new minds now, Australia runs the risk of a drastic brain drain occurring, with a massive exodus to those countries that do support research funding.

Finally, those established scientists and researchers who do remain end up having to spend weeks of their time in chasing the corporate sponsorship dollar, resulting in less time in the laboratory and the ever-present subtle (or not-so-subtle) pressure to produce results according to what the sponsor seeks, rather than unbiased, impartial and transparent results that are the hallmark of good scientific research.

I would dearly love to hear the Prime Minister stand up in a few years and say "Mr Speaker, a cure for yet another deadly form of cancer has been found, and it has been found by scientists in Australia whose research was funded by the Government."

Therefore, I ask you particularly to petition the Prime Minister, Cabinet and the Treasurer to increase scientific and medical research funding by the Government, and to make the increase greater than the CPI, thus making it a real increase in funding.

Yours sincerely,

me
I'm stuck at home with a really nasty cold, so I couldn't attend the Rally for Research. So I promised