December 28, 2020

After much back and forth, last week the U.S. Congress passed the year-end spending deal, called the Omnibus, and President Trump signed it into law Sunday night.  It’s because of your efforts during the LRA’s Virtual Hill Day in March that the need to fund research for lupus and other medical conditions has remained clear, and our requests are being largely granted.

Both sides of Congress – the House and the Senate – voted to provide $10 million for the Lupus Research Program at the U.S. Department of Defense – exactly what LRA advocates requested at our virtual Hill day in March. The same federal spending bill also provides a significant boost to the National Institutes of Health, bringing that total budget to $42.9 billion for biomedical research which is an increase of $1.25B over last year’s budget.

In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will receive a total of $3.2 billion in discretionary funding, which is $43m above last year’s enacted level.