ITP Treatments

NIH and ITP

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide funds for research in many different areas, usually to known and established researchers. About 75% of its grants fund research outside of the Institute. The average research grant is for $160,000 paid over a period of three years. Often a researcher will do some preliminary investigation in small studies and then go to the NIH for subsequent work. Organizations can raise funds and do studies in cooperation with the NIH.

The NIH has over 100 web sites.  You can search them at http://search.nih.gov/

NIH Staff

ITP falls into the rare disease category. NIH rare disease information is at http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/ord/ It also is under the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.  The Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ coordinates ITP Requests for Applications. 

National Library of Medicine

Located on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, this library's collection contains more than 5 million items...and it is open to the public. (You need to register there and have a photo taken if you want to work on-site.) The library's books and journals are also available through interlibrary loan. Go to http://www.nlm.nih.gov for more info or call (301) 496-6308.

NIH Library

This is a different library than the NLM. It is located in Building 10 on the NIH campus down an obscure hallway. It has open stacks, longer hours than the NLM, and is well stocked with journals since it is the library used by the NIH staff. It is open to the public and well worth the trip if you are doing your own ITP research. Go to http://nihlibrary.nih.gov for more info.

NIH Publication Services

The NIH has developed several comprehensive medical search services that we can use. PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed) is a retrieval system for Medline, Premedline, and Entrez data bases.

Contact the NIH

Are you unhappy with the amount of attention the NIH has given ITP?

What can we do about this? Write the NIH. Write your congressional representatives and senators.  Have your friends and family do the same.

Contribute to the Platelet Disorder Support Association.  We work with the NIH to assist patients with ITP.

NIH Research

Clinical studies at the NIH are run at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Research Hospital. To search their database for studies on ITP click here and search on thrombocytopenia.

To find information about all grants and contracts receiving support from the NIH search CRISP (Computerized Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects)

The clinical trials database is at http://clinicalstudies.info.nih.gov/

NIH Immune Booklets

The NIH will send you several free, helpful booklets by request. They are "Understanding Autoimmune Diseases" (No. 98-4273) (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/autoimmune/contents.htm ) and 'The Immune System-How it Works" (No. 96-3229).  http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/immune/the_immune_system.pdf

To order, mail your request to: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Office of Communications and Public Liaison, National Institutes of Health, 31 Center Drive, Room 7A50, MSC 2520, Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 or fax to 301-402-0120. Include your name, title and organization if applicable, address, e-mail, telephone no., and the number of copies (no more than 10).

The Consumer Health Information is an online collection of the most requested NIH publications.  It can be found at http://www.nih.gov/health/consumer/conicd.htm

NIH and Alternative Medicine

Created in 1992, the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) supports the investigation of complementary and alternative medicine practices. In 1999 the office was expanded to be the The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) It has grown from an initial budget of $2 million to $100 million in FY 2001. It receives 1,500 public inquiries a month via their information line at 1-888-644-6226. You can find more information at http://altmed.od.nih.gov/nccam

NIH News

Want to know the latest at the NIH? They publish a newsletter than you can view on-line. It is at: http://www.nih.gov/news/NIH-Record/archives.htm