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Department of Defense Parkinson’s Research

Parkinson’s Research at the Department of Defense
Neurotoxin Exposure Treatment Research Parkinson's (NETRP) Program

PAN Advocacy
Congressman Joe McDade (R-PA) created NETRP as a Congressional add-on program, which means it is not included in the President's budget. As a result, it has been up to Parkinson's advocates to fight for the program's continued funding each year.

Again this year, PAN advocates asked their Members of Congress to sign on to a letter of support, known as a Dear Colleague, for the NETRP program. Our Congressional friends, the Parkinson's Caucus co-chairs, circulate the NETRP program Dear Colleague, which is the primary way that Members show support for this essential program. House Co-chairs Peter King, Carolyn Maloney, Mark Udall, and Fred Upton and Senate Co-chairs Gordon Smith and Debbie Stabenow have been instrumental in securing Congressional support.

The Dear Colleague requests $55 million in Fiscal Year 2009 funding for the program. This funding may lead to exciting discoveries benefiting not only the military but the entire Parkinson's community. This is not an expansion of the program; rather it is the funding the NETRP program needs to fulfill its mission by funding critical research.

While the NETRP program has received funding in the House Defense Appropriations bill each year; it has never been funded in the Senate bill. Last year, the Defense Conference Committee, which resolves the differences between the House and Senate bills, decided that all Defense health research programs that were not funded in the Senate bill would be cut by 20 percent. This resulted in a $6.5 million cut to the NETRP program. To prevent future cuts to the program we must work to include the program in the Senate bill for the first time this year.

On July 9, 2008, the Congressional Caucus on Parkinson’s Disease and PAN were honored to have Colonel Karl Friedl, NETRP program administrator, on Capitol Hill to brief congressional staff on the innovative Parkinson’s research being funded at the Department of Defense’s NETRP program. An electronic copy of Col. Friedl’s presentation is available for your viewing and as a PDF download. Please click here to access the presentation.

Congressional Letters and Links

Please find below this year’s NETRP program Dear Colleague request letters. The House letter was signed by 74 Members and the Senate letter was signed by 29 Senators. The Dear Colleagues have been sent to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

House NETRP Letter
Senate NETRP Letter

Lists of Representatives and Senators signed onto the NETRP program Dear Colleague:

House NETRP Signers
Senate NETRP Signers

Brief Summary

Established in 1997, the U.S. Army Neurotoxin Exposure Treatment Research Parkinson's (NETRP) program is a national granting program that aims to improve the treatment of Parkinson's disease, as well as to identify the cause of the disease and prevent it.

NETRP program funded research examines service members' exposure to toxins during military service, and ultimately, how these conditions may be effectively prevented, treated, and cured. Particularly during a time of war, NETRP program research provides the Department of Defense (DoD) with information on how best to protect military personnel and minimize or eliminate future exposures to toxic substances, head injury, or other known contributors to Parkinson's disease.

The NETRP program is the only Parkinson's-specific Federal granting program, which is of significance to the more than one million Americans with Parkinson's disease, including nearly 80,000 veterans, and the 60,000 people diagnosed each year. The effort to fund this program is led each year, since 1997, by the Bicameral Congressional Caucus on Parkinson's Disease and supported by the entire Parkinson's community.

Due to its unique mission, the NETRP program funds bright researchers who are pursuing innovative and creative processes to reach better treatments and an answer to the plaguing question, "What causes Parkinson's disease?" This type of research is of incredible importance to the Parkinson's community since it involves novel concepts and approaches to finding new treatments and a cure.

This program is also unique because it is a national peer-reviewed granting program for which all grants must have a direct warfighter connection. As such, the NETRP program is truly a Department of Defense (DoD) research program.

The results of this research provide the DoD with information on how best to protect military personnel and minimize or eliminate future exposures to toxic substances or harmful situations. Soldiers and sailors are routinely put in harm's way during both active duty and National Guard training, including daily exposures to toxic chemicals, such as pesticides, low level radiation, sonar and radar, as well as placed at risk of head and other bodily injuries. Scientific studies have found that these everyday exposures and risk of injury put our troops at an increased risk for developing neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, which causes permanent loss of brain and nerve cells. These actions in turn affect the overall readiness of our forces.

Furthermore, given the impending retirement of the baby boomers at the end of this decade, neurodegenerative diseases are expected to surpass cancer as the second leading cause of death among the elderly by 2040. When funds are invested, the return is dramatic—both lives and money are saved.