Actor Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), a quadriplegic following a 1995 riding accident, visited President Clinton in May 1996 to lobby for more spinal cord injury research (and also spoke to Congress); Clinton promised that NIH would put $10 million more into this area, for FY 1996. Thus, Varmus and his staff had to determine where to draw the additional funds from, and how best to apply them. This plan, submitted to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala several months later, described how NIH would carry out Clinton's initiative. Although Varmus visited with Reeve in August-to help him prepare a speech for the Democratic National Convention--and liked him--he was unhappy at having to scramble his allocations around to accommodate the special request.
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