Hi, Folks!

This is an important message from the Coalition  for the Advancement of Medical Research, about the NIH guidelines I wrote you about earlier. It contains some great tips on how to expand our outreach in this crucial effort--- please read it carefully.

Thanks,

Don C. Reed

Dear CAMR Friends: 

Please read and forward this email to your network of colleagues and friends who support stem cell research!

As you know, President Obama recently issued an Executive Order instructing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop guidelines to establish a framework for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.  NIH has released its draft guidelines, and the public now has the opportunity to comment before the May 26 deadline. 

NIH will be analyzing the content, as well as volume, of the comments as it finalizes the guidelines.

We hope you will take the time to offer your comments on why this research is so important.  We also strongly encourage you to forward this email to your network of colleagues and friends who are supportive of embryonic stem cell research so that they may also weigh in with their support.  Remember, NIH will be measuring not just the content of each comment, but the volume of comments overall, so it is important to generate large numbers of comments in support of this research.

You can find CAMR's Action Alert and suggestions for comments at http://camradvocacy.org.  Please visit the site and register your comments with NIH – it's fast, easy, and critical to the future of this research.  And, tell your friends to do the same.

In addition, below are some social media tools you may want to use to help spread the word.

Twitter

With the 140-character limit and the desire for RTs (re-Tweets), below please find a message to paste into your Twitter feed to encourage your followers to weigh in on the NIH draft guidelines:

Pls RT: Show support for stem cell research: http://camradvocacy.org.

Facebook

If you haven't already posted something to your Facebook page about how to offer comments on the guidelines, here are a few ways you can do so:

1)   1) Use your update window to direct people to CAMR's web site, which hosts the action alert explaining how to comment on the NIH draft guidelines, as well as a link to the NIH web site.  An update you could cut and paste directly into the window asking "what's on your mind" might look something like this:  just clicked on http://camradvocacy.org to weigh in on why stem cell research is so important in the fight to treat and cure diseases and disorders affecting millions of Americans.

2)   2) Click on the "Notes" tab of your Facebook profile, then click on the "+Write a New Note" button.  Copy and paste the text from CAMR's homepage (http://camradvocacy.org) into the Note, then click on the "Publish" button at the bottom of the page.

3)   3) There are a few groups on Facebook you can join to help show support and encourage others to register their supportive comments to NIH.  The most popular group is called "Support Stem Cell Research."  Joining that group will show your friends that you support the issue and may encourage them to do the same.  You may also post the NIH commenting process on the discussion wall there.

Snail Mail 

If you prefer to get your message across to NIH using more traditional means, we strongly encourage the use of postcards and letters.  Feel free to copy the comment text found at http://camradvocacy.org, and print postcards and letters for each member of your family, your friends, and colleagues to sign.  You can then bundle those letters together in one large envelope and send them to: NIH Stem Cell Guidelines, MSC 7997, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7997.  Or, your friends and colleagues can send them individually.

Thanks for helping spread the word about the importance of commenting during this part of the process.  Please feel free to get in touch to let us know what you've done to share this information, and let us know if there are any particular tools or communications methods that have worked well for you!

Best regards,

Carol Blymire

CAMR Communications Consultant

 carol@...

Don C. Reed

Sponsor, Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act

Founder and Co-Chair, Californians for Cures

Don Reed is also Vice President of Public Policy for Americans for Cures Foundation; opinions voiced here as an individual may or may not reflect those of the Foundation.