Action Alert: Contact Congress to Urge Reopening of Government
October 16, 2013 – CAF is urging all supporters to contact their representatives in Congress immediately to urge that the government be reopened without further delay. The shutdown is having a negative impact on thalassemia research which we cannot afford.
Some of you may prefer to call; others may opt for email. This information will help you with either approach. But the key request is that you act today!
To call your representative and senators Washington DC office, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for the congressperson or senator by name. You will be transferred to their office.
To email them, go to their office website by Googling their name and clicking on the search result that ends in (dot)gov. There will be a page on the website to send a message.
Whichever approach you use, please act. There are several key points you want to make:
- My name is ______________ and I am a resident of (town or city).
- I (or my child) was born with a disorder called Cooley’s anemia or thalassemia, which requires that I get blood transfused every (number) weeks. These frequent transfusions result in excess iron build up in the heart and liver requiring an infusion of a drug (number) hours per day (number) days per week to sustain life.
- With the government shut down, all research applications – including those with a potential to cure this disorder – are stopped in their tracks. Better treatments and, ultimately, a cure are desperately needed. But it won’t happen in this environment. Similarly blood safety programs, critical for survival for thalassemia patients have been compromised by the shutdown.
- I urge you to take every step to reopen the federal government immediately, restore funding that has been lost to biomedical research and the securing the blood supply, and create stable and robust funding for these critical programs.
- This is nothing less than a matter of life and death. Can I please have your position on these issues?
If you are as frustrated with Washington as everyone else, this is your chance to make your concerns known. Please do not set this aside – please act today!