"Headache on
the Hill": A Time for Change
Headache
advocacy took a great leap forward with the first
‘Headache on the Hill’ seminar, September
25 and 26, 2007, when headache medicine clinicians
met with Senators and Representatives in Washington,
D.C. Dr. Robert Shapiro, HCNE President, helped
organize this lobbying event which involved 47
participants from 29 states, visiting 137 Congressional
offices. Our own Drs. Morris Levin, Elizabeth
Loder and Alan Rapoport were in attendance in
addition to Dr. Shapiro.
‘Headache on the Hill’
is a response to the chronic lack of public research
support for headache medicine, federal funding
for which is ~$13million yearly out of a total
National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget of
~$28 billion. Despite the enormous prevalence,
disability burden and economic cost of migraine
in the United States, public funding has always
been very low. Even the U.S. Congress declaring
2001-2010 the Decade of Pain Control and Research
has not helped! Epilepsy research annually receives
~$101 Million in NIH support over the past several
years. A more equitable funding target for headache
medicine would be at least $100 million a year
which would need to be sustained. Such an increase
in NIH funding would support the development of
research laboratories, the development of clinician-scientists
and support clinical trials. The neglect of public
funding for headache is also seen in European
grant-giving organizations. What is the reason
for such abysmal fiscal support? There are likely
a number of important reasons.
As nearly everyone at some
time experiences a headache,
there appears to be difficulty empathizing with
those who
experience more severe manifestations of headache
and migraine, possibly as pain is seen as a failure
of the person or a weakness. Headache has also
been seen as a women’s problem, which historically
may have contributed to the inattention by the
medical community. Despite the practice of headache
medicine being common to neurologists, most academic
neurology departments in the U.S. do not have
a faculty member identified as a dedicated headache
specialist, possibly the result of the medical
community's relative neglect, and the lack of
funding support. Shamefully, less than 5% of neurologists
in the U.S. are members of the American Headache
Society.
“Remarkably, in spite
of the funding shortage, which has been dire,
the small group of headache researchers has made
considerable progress in terms of understanding
the genetic basis of migraine. There has been
other significant progress in spite of the budgets,
and we can only imagine what things would be like
if we were more fully funded,” said Dr. Shapiro
during a recent interview.
A website is being
developed, www.headacheadvocacy.org,
to help recruit advocates and plans to offer software
that will enable users to easily contact their
political representatives. Look out for further
Headache on the Hill events in the future!
Brian McGeeney, MD
For more information:
Robert Shapiro, MD,
PhD. Robert.shapiro@uvm.edu
Shapiro RE. NIH Funding
for Research on Headache Disorders: Does it Matter?
Headache 2007;47(7):993-5.
Shapiro RE, Goadsby
PJ. The long drought: The dearth of public funding
for headache research. Cephalalgia. 2007;27(9):991-4
