Projects
Their major focus has been on pregnancy and conditions affecting babies, with involvement in projects including the rubella vaccine, ultrasound scanning in pregnancy, intrauterine blood typing, folic acid in the prevention of spina bifida, and the diagnosis of retinopathy in premature babies. Projects in older children include diet in liver disease and treatment of burns in children. Other projects include treatment for epilepsy. The charity has also been involved in hip replacement surgery and the development of aids for the elderly and severely disabled, including communication aids, the shapeable 'matrix' wheelchair and the 'Tools for Living' programme. The charity has also funded research into osteoporosis, nerve repair, hydrocephalus and myasthenia gravis.
Their current appeal 'Touching Tiny Lives' is raising money for research to prevent premature births, and pre-eclampsia and other life-threatening complications of pregnancy. It also aims to improve treatments for babies requiring special care. Supported by celebrities including Tony Hadley and Martin Fry, the campaign had raised almost £4 million by March 2009. Action Medical Research is also involved in lobbying the UK government to increase funding for research in these areas, which has led to an early day motion from Stewart Jackson, MP, signed by a total of 69 MPs.
Read more about this topic: Action Medical Research
Famous quotes containing the word projects:
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)