Dear John,
Despite the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)’s vision that all mental illnesses should be prevented or cured, the NIMH has a shameful history of ignoring those with the most severe mental illnesses.
Unfortunately, the NIMH’s newly released five-year strategic plan signals its intention to continue down the same path, virtually abandoning research efforts to find better drugs for treating severe mental illness.
As Treatment Advocacy Center founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey recently noted in an article in Psychiatric Times, while the NIMH has markedly reduced drug treatment trials for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in recent years – from 48 to merely two – Congress has given NIMH generous budget increases, representing a total increase of 35% since 2015.
This is unacceptable.
In a letter we sent today to the Senate subcommittee considering next year’s NIMH budget, we strongly urge Congress to provide proper oversight and ensure that NIMH prioritizes projects that will help people with severe mental illness.
Here’s what you can do: Submit your own public comment to Congress via [email protected] with the subject line “FY2021 LHHS OWT.” Make sure to include contact information (name, email, physical address and telephone).
But hurry, the deadline to submit is tomorrow by 5 p.m.
Remember, you don’t need to be a research scientist to make your voice heard; you just need to care about severe mental illness reform and want our government to do the same.
Feel free to use our letter as a guide, but we encourage you to also share your story of how the decisions of NIMH affect you and your loved ones.
For detailed instructions on how to submit your testimony, click here.
Thank you.
Treatment Advocacy Center
