This is a follow up to Friday’s piece on how to save American biomedical research. A lot of what follows assumes you’ve read that earlier piece. I realized based on responses I received that there is one point I didn’t make explicit enough. As I wrote, there are “disease communities” around every major disease that affects Americans — cancers, diseases of age and dementia, heart disease, degenerative disorders. These communities exist in relationship with various advocacy organizations. But they are not the same and there’s a reason I focused specifically on these communities rather than the organizations.