Call Your Representative to Urge them to Sign onto a Letter to Restore FY26 CDMRP Funding
Congress slashed the Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) budget by 57% (or $859 million) for FY25—including suspending funding for all epilepsy-related programs in the CDMRP with no new funding opportunities anticipated this year. The FY26 budget does not restore this funding and, if not fully funded, we’ll see research interruptions that could have long-term implications for the health and readiness of all Americans.
The CDMRP originated in 1992 to foster novel approaches to biomedical research for the military and the broader American public. The CDMRP is of particular importance to CURE Epilepsy and our community because it houses the Epilepsy Research Program (ERP), which our founder Susan Axelrod advocated to help create back in 2015. The progress we have made in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) research for veterans and others with acquired epilepsy has come thanks to key funding from the ERP.
There are two Dear Colleague letters circulating that aim to increase CDMRP funding in FY26 — one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate. We are asking the epilepsy community to rally together and call urge their Congresspeople to sign on to these letters.
Senate Call/Email Script
Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent and voter from [location]. I’m calling to urge Senator [Last Name] to sign onto the Dear Colleague letter led by Senators Wicker and Durbin regarding FY26 CDMRP funding.
I am one of your constituents, and I am deeply troubled by the dramatic budget reductions for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the Department of Defense (DoD), including the Epilepsy Research Program (ERP), which has been eliminated entirely. Cuts to these programs threaten to stall scientific progress and has the potential to have major fiscal ramifications for the nation.
There are nearly 3.4 million Americans, including 470,000 children, living with active epilepsy. Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological condition, impacting people throughout their lifetime. Epilepsy and seizures impose an annual economic healthcare burden of $54 billion in the U.S. — in 2024, the Epilepsy Research Program only received $12 million, a sliver of that $54 billion. Epilepsy research and programs not only have the opportunity to save American lives, but also to dramatically lower the fiscal burden of this condition.
I am urging Senator [Name] to sign onto the FY26 Funding: Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Letter. This is a bipartisan issue that directly impacts constituents and voters in [state].
House Call/Email Script
Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent and voter from [location]. I’m calling to urge Representative [Last Name] to sign onto the Dear Colleague letter led by Reps. Carson and Fitzpatrick regarding FY26 CDMRP funding.
I am one of your constituents, and I am deeply troubled by the dramatic budget reductions for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the Department of Defense (DoD), including the Epilepsy Research Program (ERP), which has been eliminated entirely. Cuts to these programs threaten to stall scientific progress and has the potential to have major fiscal ramifications for the nation.
There are nearly 3.4 million Americans, including 470,000 children, living with active epilepsy. Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological condition, impacting people throughout their lifetime. Epilepsy and seizures impose an annual economic healthcare burden of $54 billion in the U.S. — in 2024, the Epilepsy Research Program only received $12 million, a sliver of that $54 billion. Epilepsy research and programs not only have the opportunity to save American lives, but also to dramatically lower the fiscal burden of this condition.
I am urging Rep. [Name] to sign onto the FY26 Funding: Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Letter. This is a bipartisan issue that directly impacts constituents and voters in [city].
Senate Letter Text
Dear Chairman McConnell and Ranking Member Coons:
As you consider the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 appropriations for the Department of Defense (DoD), we respectfully urge the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to uphold its commitment to our nation’s servicemembers by providing at least $3.517 billion in funding for DoD-wide Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) accounts that fund medical research.
As the United States’ national security apparatus work to counter foreign adversary threats, it is important to ensure we support programs that are critical to warfighter protection and readiness. Rapid and transformative innovation is critical to ensure the Military Health System has the most advanced medical capabilities available to support readiness, combat effectiveness and survivability against adversaries. As the austere conditions of future combat operations may pose new threats to servicemembers due to endemic, emerging, and engineered biothreats, arctic operational environments, delayed evacuation, prolonged casualty care on the battlefield and contested logistics, it is vital that the DoD’s medical research infrastructure is funded now to prepare for those future threats.
DoD has a long history of robust research programs that support advances in prevention and treatment for a range of conditions related to battlefield trauma, traumatic brain injury, mental health, infectious diseases, rehabilitative and regenerative medicine, and cancer. While DoD’s intramural laboratories and researchers study conditions that commonly afflict our servicemembers, they also contribute to the fundamental knowledge and development of new technologies that benefit the wider American public and allies across the globe. Many medical innovations that grew out of U.S. military research over the past two centuries have been widely adopted in civilian medicine, including the use of antibiotics, prophylactics, blood transfusions, and extremity trauma care. Virtually all advances in civilian trauma care in the United States can be linked back to the U.S. military, including most recently DoD research that supported the development of vaccines to response to the COVID-19 pandemic. DoD medical research also plays a vital and unique role in the broader enterprise of federally-funded medical research institutions. DoD coordinates with other federal agencies to fill gaps in research and avoid duplication, for example by focusing on groundbreaking new cures or therapies. In addition, DoD’s medical research grant-making pipeline—which funds efforts in every state in the country—involves input from patient advocates and experts in an extraordinary peer-review process.
Most importantly, cutting-edge defense medical research has been proven to produce results, yielding significant returns in economic development through innovation and health care cost savings. The highly successful Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) is a critical component of DoD medical research efforts, funded at $1.509 billion in FY 2024. CDMRP funding alone has contributed to 56 U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments over the years, including 11 cancer drugs, a rapid blood test for traumatic brain injury, and more than 600 clinical trials exploring breakthrough therapies and vaccines. CDMRP also maintains an overhead rate of 5.62 percent, among the lowest of any federal research agency. CDMRP funding was reduced by 57 percent in FY 2025, with research programs for traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, epilepsy, and orthotics and prosthetics receiving zero funding.
DoD needs to modernize medical capabilities for warfighter health, readiness, and clinical care. Advances in military medicine have substantially evolved over the past 20 years to improve survivability rates following complex and polytraumatic injuries sustained by service members on the battlefield. As such, we request at least $3.517B for DoD’s RDT&E accounts that fund medical research, which would reflect five percent real growth over FY 2024. This funding would help enhance our medical capabilities and face the challenges posed by future conflicts amid rising inflation and supply chain constraints, and is critical to ensure our national security interests and essential to servicemember deploy-ability, health, and readiness.
Thank you for your consideration of this important request.
House Letter Text
Dear Chairman Calvert and Ranking Member McCollum:
As you begin work on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 appropriations process, we write to respectfully request that you provide increased funding for valuable medical research conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD) through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP).
The initiatives under the CDMRP are critical to advancing our understanding of a variety of health issues and have a proven track record of contributing to medical breakthroughs. They deserve Congress’s continuing support. The highly innovative research portfolio supported by the CDMRP focuses first and foremost on the health and well-being of the men and women in the U.S. Armed Services. Examples of these programs focus research investments on:
- Traumatic brain injury and psychological health, Gulf War Illness, respiratory health, burn pits and other toxic exposures, spinal cord injury, and hearing and vision loss, and newer conditions such as Long COVID.
- Existing and emerging infectious diseases that may threaten operational readiness and health security, and why diseases like ALS, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease occur at greater rates in those who have served in the military.
- Orthotic and prosthetic research that has resulted in new limb-sparing techniques to save and restore functions of injured extremities, as well as outcomes research benefiting injured warfighters in need of orthotic and prosthetic devices.
Defense health research program grants neither duplicate nor supplant National Institutes of Health (NIH) or Veterans Administration (VA) research efforts, but rather enhance those efforts. They fund highly innovative projects – support that is typically unavailable through other federal programs. CDMRP funds the best-qualified proposals from researchers and research teams at top research universities and medical centers. Unlike any other federal research program, CDMRP utilizes “consumer” reviewers – everyday citizens who are affected by these diseases – to review grants to ensure the best possible impact. The NIH and DoD medical research portfolios have symbiotic relationships, allowing NIH-funded basic research to serve as a foundation for ground-breaking, disorder-targeted research at DoD. NIH and DoD program officers meet regularly to ensure collaboration and prevent duplication.
Unfortunately, the Full Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act (P.L. 119-4) reduced CDMRP overall by 57 percent, or $859 million. However, this reduction was not applied equally across all 35 programs. Instead, many programs vital to warfighter health — such as traumatic brain injury/psychological health; vision and hearing, orthotics, prosthetics and spinal cord; and pancreatic, kidney and lung cancer – received no funding for research grants in FY 2025. If not fully funded, these programs will experience research interruptions that could have long-term implications for the health and readiness of the warfighter.
Members of Congress have traditionally supported a wide variety of programs within the CDMRP, each with its own merits. While we all recognize the challenges facing your committee in this difficult budget climate, we urge you to continue your support for the programs within the CDMRP.