I recently came across a fictional publication called the Not Yet Gazette with a front-page story dated November 10, 2025, entitled, “Demonstrators demand more money for arthritis research.” The fictional report gave details of a crowd of 100,000, “many in wheelchairs,” confronting the health secretary of that time. The genesis of this fictional article was the observed trend towards the aging of the population and slow growth in research funding. The article stated that, “ ‘Fiscal constraints caused by slow economic growth and resistance to tax increases have greatly reduced allocations for medical research grants in recent years,’ [the health secretary] told the delegates. ‘Unfortunately, in our current political climate, funding for health research is limited,’ she said to reporters after the meeting. ‘We have to devote our limited resources to diseases that are more immediately life-threatening.’ ”
In America’s Recession, the REF Remains Strong
According to a survey conducted in October 2008 by the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers, three-quarters of the region’s leading foundations and corporate giving programs suffered a decline in assets because of plummeting returns on investments over 2008. About one-third of the respondents said they reduced grant budgets from 2007 to 2008, and about half of the organizations said they plan to award fewer grants in 2009.
New Research Yields Significant Advances in RA Detection and Treatment
F or the first time during its unprecedented initiative to find a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the ACR Research and Education Foundation (REF) is releasing new information acquired from research funded by the Within Our Reach campaign.
Inspire Rheumatology’s Next Generation
The rheumatology patient population is projected to increase dramatically over the next decade, and there is an urgent need to recruit and train the next generation of rheumatologists.
A New Focus of International Rheumatology
International collaboration through ILAR promotes health equity in rheumatology
What a Bold Vision and Dedication Can Achieve
Over the past two years, you have heard us talking a lot about Within Our Reach: Finding a Cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis, the Research and Education Foundation (REF) campaign to raise and award funds for investigator-initiated research to find a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Looking Ahead to 2009
Moving forward and reflecting back
Bridge Funding Award Keeps Researcher on the Path to Her Passion
On June 25, 2008, the American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation received a letter from Sujata Sarkar, MD, one of the first recipients of the ACR REF/Arthritis Foundation Bridge Funding Award. In that letter Dr. Sarkar wrote, “I am very thankful to you … This award has come to me at a very crucial and vulnerable time in my academic career as a junior researcher.” The crucial and vulnerable time to which Dr. Sarkar refers is the time when she would need to search for alternative funding to pay for her rheumatology research career—or leave academia altogether.
Keep Your Money by Giving It Away
If you read last month’s article, “Why the REF” (p. 13), written by Leslie J. Crofford, MD, president of ACR Research and Education Foundation (REF), announcing the REF’s new planned giving program, you may have asked yourself, “How can I benefit from this program?” The answer: The REF’s planned-giving program is designed to help you plan your legacy while supporting the mission of the REF—to improve patients’ lives through support of research and training that advances the prevention, treatment, and cure of rheumatic diseases. Put simply, you benefit monetarily, but—more importantly—you feel satisfaction because you helped ensure the future of rheumatology by making a charitable gift to the REF.
Why the REF?
I am delighted to use the occasion of this inaugural REF president’s column to share a vision of the future and describe the exciting developments that will allow us to meet the challenges ahead. Although most of you know that the ACR is associated with a foundation, I find that many of our members wonder what the REF does that is different from the mission and activities of the ACR and the ARHP. In the simplest terms, the ACR and the ARHP are engaged in improving the quality of our professional lives as rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals, while the core mission of the REF is to ensure the future of our specialty.
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