I like this thread a lot, so I don't mean to be argumentative. But with regard to the GDNF press release and ad, we didn't go with the NY Times because a one-day run of a black and white full page ad in the Times runs $142,083. If you are willing to let them run it any day of their choice in a seven-day period (a "stand-by" ad), it's discounted for advocacy groups to $64,000 and change.

Not having anywhere near that kind of money, we sought to leverage our funds by putting the ad where Kevin Shearer and other Amgen employees could read it with their morning Cheerios, and used the press release to tell the rest of the world what it said and where to find it. I tracked the press release through a professional press release service. It made it into several daily papers, but more importantly it was printed in full on over twenty trade web sites for medical and scientific professionals. As I said, it did, IMHO, help keep the GDNF discussion alive among those most interested in the controversy.

As far as the national organizations printing anything remotely like this on their home-pages (or anywhere else for that matter), after hours of discussion and persuasion by the advocates involved in the GDNF effort, only PDF and PAN wrote letters to Amgen supporting the patient position. The other orgs wanted no part of it. They all receive money from Pharma, and they didn't want the cow to stop giving milk. It is euphemistically referred to as "donor sensitivity."

If we are going to get the facts out to the patient, org, research, and pharma communities, we will need to find ways to make very little money go as far as possible. But we have a lot of smart and resourceful people on this forum, and with enough commitment and the application of our creativity, we can do things that might at first glance seem impossible.

Keep the Faith,

Greg Wasson