Massachusetts' Fund for Spinal Cord Injury Research

On August 13, 2004, Massachusetts established a fund for spinal cord injury research. Governor Mitt Romney signed the Massachusetts Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund bill into law to support research for finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.

The Massachusetts Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund will be funded through a surcharge on certain traffic violation fines and is expected to raise between $450,000 and $800,000 a year for spinal cord research.

Medical advances funded through the Trust Fund could improve the lives of Massachusetts's residents with a spinal cord injury, as well as persons with a spinal cord injury throughout the nation. More than one-quarter of the states in the USA have passed legislation creating programs expressly devoted to spinal cord injury research. Most of these 14 state's programs were launched in the late 1990s. California, Connecticut, New York and Florida are among the states funding research programs.

The Massachusetts Trust Fund would also benefit local universities and research facilities. Massachusetts is already recognized as a world leader in biomedical research and biotechnology. By providing another steady source of increased funding, a Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund would attract even more top researchers to the Commonwealth and enhance Massachusetts’s already prestigious reputation. This research could lead to better treatments for people with other neurological conditions as well, such as head injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.

Approximately 11,000 people sustain a spinal cord injury each year. Most (nearly 41%) are caused by motor vehicle accidents. It is estimated that 219,000 to 279,000 people in the United States have a spinal cord injury. Like the physical and emotional effects of spinal cord injury, the economic costs of treating spinal cord injuries can be overwhelming. First-year costs for a patient with a spinal cord injury often exceed $500,000. Total lifetime costs can exceed $2 million for an individual who suffered a severe spinal injury at 25 years of age. Managing the care of spinal cord injury patients costs almost $4 billion annually.