Karen Allendoerfer wrote:
> Someone else on this list has suggested emailing President Clinton. I
>> suspect he's also not really the right target for our suggestions.
> But
> who is? Harold Varmus? Keith Yamamoto (I think he was running for an
>> office in the AAAS)? Bruce Alberts? Grant administrators in the NIH?
>> Presidents or officers of our professional societies? Congress?
>
I personally think the right target is the general public. If you
convince the general public then everyone else (in particular
politicians) will follow suit. The sad thing is that if a politician
doesn't see votes in an issue then they are not interested (with a few
notable exceptions). However, once the public feels or is aware that
there is a problem then you can start to sway politicians. How do you
convince the public, I don't know, I just talk to anyone who will
listen, but you could write to journalists and editors of the
newspapers, you can also do a lot of evangilism on-line (yes I think
science needs evangilists), you could make a great/interesting web site
describing neat labs which are doing valuable research etc, you can talk
at schools (most schools love visits from scientists, and schoolkids are
definately a good group to sway).......
Other than dealing with the public, by all means write to everyone
concerned, panel members, grant commitees, congressmen, state
legislators etc. I suspect that until politicians come through with
more funding the response will be a uniform "yes we understand and
sympathise but we don't have the funds".
> And how should we go about approaching these people? As individuals?
> Through some sort of mass mailing campaign? Through fora such as the
> AAAS meeting? As representatives of some sort of organization such as
>> the "Young Scientists' Network?" All of the above?
All of the above and anything else that hasn't been mentioned as well.
cheersBart
