Mission
The Rally for Medical Research was launched in 2013 with one urgent purpose: to make funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a national priority. What began as a single day of advocacy has become an annual nationwide movement uniting millions of patients, advocates, researchers, clinicians, and partner organizations. Each September, Rally participants carry the call to Capitol Hill, urging Congress to provide robust and predictable NIH funding. In these face-to-face meetings, lawmakers see what is at stake. Without sustained investment, progress halts, trials close, and patients pay the price. With strong support for NIH, research advances and lives are saved.
Medical Research Saves Lives
Decades of bipartisan support for NIH have already saved millions of lives and changed the course of our deadliest diseases:
- Cancer: Since 1991, U.S. cancer death rates have dropped by 34%, sparing nearly 4.5 million lives through advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment.
- Heart Disease: Since 1970, heart disease death rates have fallen by about two thirds, thanks to breakthroughs in blood pressure control, cholesterol therapies, and emergency cardiac care.
- Stroke: Since the 1970s, stroke death rates have declined sharply, and NIH-supported research led to tPA, still the only FDA-approved clot-busting drug saving lives in stroke emergencies every day.
- HIV/AIDS: Since the mid-1990s, HIV-related death rates in the United States have declined by more than 75%, as NIH-backed antiretroviral therapy turned a fatal diagnosis into a manageable condition.
- Alzheimer’s & Dementia: More than 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, a number projected to double by 2060. NIH is supporting 475 clinical trials and helping deliver the first therapies that slow decline, giving families more time together.
- Diabetes: Between 2009 and 2017, new diagnoses of diabetes dropped by 35%, while NIH-supported advances such as glucose monitors and insulin pumps are transforming how millions manage the disease and live longer, healthier lives.
- Childhood Leukemia: In the 1960s, fewer than 1 in 10 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia survived five years after diagnosis. Today, more than 90% survive, a transformation made possible by decades of NIH research.
NIH’s impact is not abstract. It is proof that sustained, bipartisan investment in research saves lives, delivers cures, and strengthens America’s future.
Why We Rally
The Rally for Medical Research is not just a day on Capitol Hill. It is a nationwide commitment to defend the science that saves lives and to stand with those who cannot afford to wait. Breakthroughs that once seemed impossible are now within reach, but only if America continues to invest in NIH.
The choice is clear: protect progress, protect patients, protect the future.
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