"Is our children living?" George Bush doesn't care.

More to contact your congresscritter about. We have plenty of money (NOT!) to blow 'furriners' to kingdom come, but not enough to take care of our own children. Ya' know how it is, when you're the deciderer, you just got to keep your priorities straight.
Judith Graham at The Chicago Tribune

In private conversations across the country this holiday break, pediatricians are buttonholing their congressmen and making a heartfelt plea: Save the National Children's Study.

This is the latest attempt to rescue the most important study of children's health and the environment in the United States.

Hundreds of scientists have helped plan the project since 2000. The scope is enormous: Researchers are set to track 100,000 children from birth to age 21, collecting genetic material and blood samples and recording kids' exposure to everything from pesticides to chemicals and air pollution. Enrollment activities were scheduled to begin in 2007.

But earlier this year, President Bush's proposed budget called for terminating the $2.7 billion study instead of allocating the $69 million requested for fiscal 2007. "The issue is really an issue of prioritization" of limited research money, Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, told a Senate hearing in May.

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