Legislative and Policy Priorities

Medical Research

  • Please provide the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with sustained funding in fiscal year (FY) 2024. Important research on RLS is funded across NIH Institutes and Centers, including the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Sustained funding commitments are needed to identify better treatments and a cure for this devastating disorder.
  • Please continue to include “sleep disorders” in the Department of Defense Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) for FY 2024. RLS is a major sleep disorder that affects an estimated 40,000 active duty military personnel.

Patient Access to Appropriate Treatments

  • Please accommodate the needs of patients who rely on the regular use of low-total daily doses of opioids to manage their RLS. As you consider new legislation and work with federal agencies to address the opioid epidemic, please support a diagnosis-appropriate safe harbor for RLS patients, so they do not face arbitrary barriers. RLS patients need for their physicians to be able to prescribe opioids appropriately and without undue restriction.

Education and Awareness

  • Please provide $5 million for the National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System (NNCSS) for FY 2024. The NNCSS at the Centers for Chronic Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collects and synthesizes data to help increase our understanding of neurological disorders and to support further neurologic research. RLS remains a severely misunderstood and underdiagnosed neurological disorder, and increased surveillance is vital to improving patient outcomes.
  • Please provide at least $6 million for the Chronic Diseases Education and Awareness Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With the cessation of the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project (NHSAP), CDC presently has only one active public health activity dedicated to sleep or sleep disorders, set to expire in 2024, despite the fact that sleep affects nearly every body system and many chronic diseases. Please allow the valuable scientific and public health efforts started during the NHSAP to continue.

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