A Good Loma Linda Earmark?
4 June 2008
A Good Loma Linda Earmark?
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Yesterday's Redlands Daily Facts has a glowing bio piece on Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) who has been a good friend to Loma Linda University. I thought this to be an interesting defense of earmarks.
Beginning in 1988, Lewis convinced majority Democrats to fund an innovative technology at Loma Linda University Medical Center, which focused a proton beam to kill cancers without harming surrounding tissue. The Proton Treatment Center has gone on to treat thousands of patients.
"That would not exists if it weren't for earmarks," Lewis said. "(Founder) Jim Slater came to Washington and gave a presentation. The center has saved thousands of lives and I am very proud of that work."
Here's a nicely illustrate article in last year's Times on nuclear therapy:
“It all comes down to the physics,” said Dr. Jerry D. Slater, the head of radiation medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California. “Every X-ray beam I use puts most of the dose where I don’t want it.” By contrast, he said, proton beams put most of the dose in the tumor.
Loma Linda built the nation’s first hospital-based proton center in 1990 and has treated about 13,000 patients. Its success has inspired others.
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Comments
In 2007 UC San Francisco received $439 million from NIH. Between 1998 and 2003, Loma Linda University received $167.2 million in earmarks.
The top NIH grants given to Loma Linda researchers are those lead by Marino and Daisy DeLeon at $8.1 million.
Loma Linda is alone in being the only health sciences university with a medical centre which has spirituality as an integral component of its curriculum. For some reason NIH grants tend to go to big universities and Loma Linda isn't one of them.
Jerry Lewis has been an important person for faith-based schools and helps secure funding for research for Universities outside of his district including Azusa Pacific University.
The government rightly funds research and treatment which is cutting edge. Unfortunately grants from the NIH to Loma Linda researchers on the scale of that given to the health disparities study by the DeLeons is an exception to the rule. Loma Linda might seem big to us Seventh-day Adventists but it's a small fish compared to other universities which grab most research grants.
There are a lot of factors that explain this but what is important is for us to realise that our representative (I am domiciled, and registered to vote, in the 41st district) is doing his best to make sure that we're recognised for the work we're doing.
The question to ask is why it takes our representative to get funding for the stellar work we have going on. The imbalance in NIH funding should be addressed. I'm thankful to Jerry Lewis for stepping in and standing up for small universities within and without his district!
/this article from the press enterprise is a great overview of earmarks, grants and funding imbalances.
//i'm personally proud that so many of the well-funded researchers at llu are hispanic
///this article from LLU is also good
That second article you linked to was really good. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in a good evening read on the history of research at Loma Linda University.
http://www.llu.biz/news/today/today_story.php?id=478
This 'graph reads like a who's who of Spectrum.
"Later he founded the School of Public Health with a strong emphasis on research. The growing research emphasis in the basic sciences in the 1950s and 1960s attracted many new faculty with research interests, including Ian M. Fraser, PhD, and Leonard R. Bullas, PhD (both from Australia); R. Bruce Wilcox, PhD; Allen Strother, PhD; Joe Willey, PhD; and Brian S. Bull, MD."
Pathfinder's honor: who can be the first to correctly identify the founder of the School of Public Health without reading the article.
Was it Richard Hart?
Mervyn Hardinge - he later became my neighbor in Brewster, WA
It is a tragedy that earmarks have gotten such a bad rap due to a few, but very public examples of a bridges to nowhere, an indoor rainforest in Iowa, and monuments to me.
The vast majority of earmarks are responsible, meet real needs, and allow our Representatives to weigh in against the Administration (any administration) in funding projects. Our Representatives know the districts' needs and capabilities better than the White House. And in case we forget, the Constitution states that only Congress shall have the power to appropriate money.
In addition to the many lives Congressman Lewis has saved through his support of Loma Linda University Medical Center, he also sponsored an earmark for an unwanted project called the Predator. The Predator is a unmanned aerial vehicle that is critical to the war on terror. Those are not unique examples for him.
Congressman Lewis has vision to see what can be and the courage to make it happen. His service in Congress and his foresight to fund projects that were overlooked by the White House have benefited the community, the state, and the nation.
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