You're the Cure on Capitol Hill

More than 80 American Heart Association advocates donned their red in Washington D.C. on March 10 for meetings with Members of Congress. A mix of heart disease and stroke researchers and survivors asked our nation’s lawmakers to provide significant funding increases for the National Institutes for Health (NIH) medical research. Heart and stroke patients rely on NIH-funded research to develop cutting edge treatment and prevention strategies, and even find cures for heart disease and stroke.


Sadly, our nation’s investment in heart and stroke research continues to fall short. Though heart disease and stroke remain the 1st and 3rd leading causes of death in the United States, NIH invests only four percent and a mere one percent of its budget, respectively, on heart and stroke research.

Research holds our best hope of saving lives that would otherwise be lost to heart disease or stroke. Send a message to your Members of Congress and urge them to provide significant funding increases for NIH heart and stroke research.

Act Now!!

Right now Washington, D.C. is agonizing over ways to put Americans back to work.

We have a simple suggestion for Congress that doesn't just spur economic growth -- it saves lives: investments in job-creating medical research, such as the National Institutes of Health's efforts to combat heart disease and stroke.

Right now, NIH devotes only 4% of its budget to heart research and a mere 1% to stroke research -- and every 38 seconds, someone in the U.S. dies from cardiovascular disease.

That's why American Heart Association advocates are on Capitol Hill today. From researchers who fight for the cure to patients who fight for their lives, we're urging lawmakers to make these crucial, life-saving investments.

We need you to back them up today!

Tell your Members of Congress to increase funding for NIH heart and stroke research that creates jobs while saving lives. Ask them to appropriate $35 billion for the NIH.

NIH invests resources in every state and each NIH grant generates on average 7 jobs. A projected 50,000 jobs will be created or saved between 2009 and 2010, according to the NIH.

But, more importantly, these investments advance promising science to get us closer to finally finding a cure for heart disease and stroke.

Dozens of AHA advocates are making the rounds on Capitol Hill as you read this.

Now's the time to flex our grassroots muscles to ensure their voices aren't lost in the shuffle -- send a message to your Members of Congress today!

Remind them the cost of delay: one more death every 38 seconds in the United States. That's what's at stake -- and that's why we're in this fight.