March 21, 2025
$40M in SCI Research Just Got Eliminated - Here's What You Can Do
Matthew Rodreick
There is a terrible irony hiding in the news this past week. The Federal Budget that passed last Friday (3/14) cut 57% - approximately $850 million - out of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP). This is a Department of Defense agency that funds biomedical research programs, including spinal cord injury.
Within those cuts is a zeroing out of the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRP)…or about $40 million this year. That’s $40 million GONE, right now!
What’s the irony? It took U2FP and the SCI community 10 years and a lot of hard advocacy work to get $40 million cumulatively at the state level. And now, overnight, almost one third of all federal SCI research funding has been taken off the table.
As infuriating and disheartening as this is, it also motivates us to fight harder, raise our voices louder and work together to mobilize our community to get this money back.
We have called a meeting with the leading national SCI organizations next week. We hope to craft a message and collaborate together to get this $40 million back. Please join us!
Here’s what you can do right now: call your legislator in the house and the senate. Ask them to restore our research and return the $40 million to SCIRP. It will only take a couple minutes. It’s that simple.
This program gives our community a voice in how the dollars are awarded, which makes it accountable to us. And watch for an upcoming note from our own Jason Stoffer about his experience as a participant in this critical program.
Please call your legislators now while there’s still a chance to save this funding.
In solidarity,
