At your June 24 [1993] hearings, you requested five extra OAM employees. These still have not been approved. Meanwhile, OAM is overwhelmed with work. Please appeal to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala to get this moving.
Dr. Jay Moskowitz's change of jobs has left the OAM without a strong friend at the top of NIH. Please help to make the OAM a Center of Alternative Medicine next year, situated, if possible, within the office of the Director of NIH. This will give it the power, independence, and funding authority it needs to carry out its mandate.
Please increase OAM's budget next year, and get each Institute of the NIH to allocate a certain percentage of its budget to alternative treatment research. Please hold follow-up hearings this fall. Try to find out what happened to the $1 million the OAM gave NCI; find out why OAM is being billed $600,000 for a single meeting; and focus on the role of the FDA in hampering the OAMs proposed field investigations.
Senator Harkin, you have been the mainstay of alternative medicine in Congress. Please act now to revitalize the OAM, or it may soon exist in name alone.
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