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MS Research Funding

Ask Congress to provide funding for MS research to stop MS in its tracks, restore what has been lost and end MS forever.

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What We Are Trying to Accomplish

To increased federal funding of MS research at the:
  1. National Institutes of Health (NIH),
  2. Multiple Sclerosis Research Program (MSRP) at the Department of Defense, and
  3. National Neurological Conditions Surveillance (data collection) System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why It’s Important

  1. While the Society sees itself as a strategic partner to the federal government, federal funding of MS research is essential to foster novel research and treatment to stop disease progression, restore function, and end MS forever.
  2. The National Neurological Conditions Surveillance (data collection) System:  a nationwide system to track the incidence and prevalence of neurological diseases, including MS, could one day lead to a cure.

Happening at the National Level

National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The NIH is the country’s premier medical research institution and the single largest source of biomedical research funding in the world. It is also the single largest source of funding for MS research projects in the world. In FY 21, the NIH recieved $42.9 billion, in FY 22 the NIH recieved $45 billion, in FY 23 the NIH recieved $47.5 billion.

MS Research Program (MSRP)
The MSRP is administered by the Department of Defense and funded by Congress as part of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. The research within the CDMRP focuses on innovative, high-risk, high reward research that is complementary to research that is funded by the NIH.

Approximately 70,000 US veterans live with MS, and around 20,000 of those living with MS receive care through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) each year. Around 12,000 seen by the VHA each year have been diagnosed with MS that was deemed "service-connected."

In FY 2023 the MSRP recieved $20 million in funding - level/continued funding from the previous year.

National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System (NNCSS)
In 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law, authorizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System to collect data on neurologic conditions to improve research and public health data on these conditions. The NNCSS is authorized for 5 years and received its first bath of funding in FY2019. In FY2020, The National Neurologic Conditions Surveillance System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received $5 million in funding to continue implementation of the MS and Parkinson’s Disease pilots

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Help support federal funding for MS research.

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