FUNDING RESUSCITATION RESEARCH

The present trend in managed care has meant downsizing expectations co ncerning the availability of support for resuscitation research. This trend applies to funding possibilities from industry, governmental age ncies, and nongovernmental agencies (Table 1). There will be increasin g barriers to making innovations. Truth, science, and good patient car e alone will not make potential donors give grants. Investigators must also understand the potential donors' expectations and be persuasive. ''Delight your donor. Industries' concerns include intellectual prope rty rights and publications. The National Institutes of Health, recent ly favoring molecular biology over lifesaving therapies or integrated physiologic research, is an anomaly. The current peer review system pr opagates itself without having advocates for resuscitation research. T his system has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The American Heart A ssociation is only recently, after 30 yrs of educational activities co ncerning cardiopulmonary resuscitation, considering putting some basic research money into resuscitation research, in university hospitals, where clinical departments have made significant contributions to inno vative, clinically relevant life support research, funded with incomes from patient care, the sky is beginning to fall. Resuscitation resear chers need persuasive advocates with clout and hard data to convince f unding agencies to give support to multilevel research and development in areas of pathophysiology and reversibility of terminal states and clinical death-to give these topics a higher priority than is currentl y available.