Senator HARKIN. Mr. Schott, thank you very much. This subcommittee is well aware of the $8 million and the mandate to CPB to get the $8 million out. But this is the first year of that. Mr. SCHOTT. That is correct. Senator HARKIN. And you say that you have had 2,040 proposals this past month. How many do you hope to fund of those? Mr. SCHOTT. Well, that will depend on a panel. I would hope that, out of that, we might fund something like 15 programs for public television. And, of course, that is not our entire initiative, it is only one aspect of it. Senator HARKIN. I do not understand that; 15 out of 2,040? Mr. SCHOTT. Well, unfortunately, that is the case. We have a tremendous desire by independent producers across the country to produce for public television. And we will be setting aside roughly $2 million out of $6 million for this one initiative. There will be many other opportunities in programs by which people can apply, but there is a tremendous desire by independent producers to speak through television and a paucity of dollars. Senator HARKIN. What do you mean, on page 2, when you say that “ITVS's mandate, on the other hand, is not compatible with corporate underwriting." What is your mandate? What does that mean? Mr. SCHOTT. Well, we feel that corporate underwriting over the last 5 to 10 years has become extremely conservative. It seeks to produce programs that reflect its corporate identity. It has become very nervous about any programs which are controversial and it has wanted to celebrate rather than to provide any kind of criticism through television. It is looking for a very wide demographic which serves it. It is not particularly interested in regional issues. Corporate funding has not been particularly concerned about the issues of minorities. And so it has become very narrow and defined. And public television has responded to that. We are not back with the old days, 20 years ago, in which there was widespread support in corporate America for unusual and nontraditional programs. So part of this conservatism within the system has come from trying to find a program idea that is acceptable to a corporate funder. We believe that public television is really going to serve its original mandate, that it has to be prepared to fund things which conservative corporations are not prepared to fund. Senator HARKIN. When you give these grants out to independent producers, what assurance do you have that public television is going to carry it? Mr. SCHOTT. Well, we are confident that the procedures by which we will be able to select those programs will, first of all, make them good programs. Out of 2,000 programs, we will have the opportunity of say, choosing the best 15. I think that gives us great confidence. Beyond that, we will provide a variety of production supports to see that those programs are moving forward, to work with the individual producers creatively, and we will also have a wide range of the kind of ascertainments around the country to define the issues that ITVS should be responding to. So I think we are quite confident that we will have a series of first rate programs. But like anyone else who produces for public television, we will have no guarantees that the program will be run, any more than WNET in New York, or WGBH in Boston would have a guar antee. Senator HARKIN. When will we see the first programs coming through? Mr. SCHOTT. Well, if we fund some things this summer, I think we could assume that some of the first of them will hit the airwaves roughly early in 1992. It would be about 1 year from now. Senator HARKIN. Well I look forward to it. I must tell you that I am on track with you in terms of what you say. I think there are a lot of people out there with a lot of good ideas to do some programing that for one reason or another is just not being done. And I think that this would tend to increase, perhaps, some of the viewership of public television. Mr. SCHOTT. Yes, sir, we believe so. Senator HARKIN. I assume that some of the things that you might be supporting might not really be of a national character. It might just go to a local area, or something like that. Would that be right? I mean, let us say that you had an independent producer that wanted to produce something that might be of great interest to a local area, but not necessarily to the Nation as a whole. Would you look upon something like that? Mr. SCHOTT. We would certainly be prepared to. The initial idea in public television is that individual audiences and communities would be served by individual programming directed toward them. As we move to a much more competitive environment and a market driven environment, now the schedulers have to look to see how it is going to play to everybody across the country. And if, for example, from a regional point of view, or in terms of programming that might speak to native American concerns, the judgment is that if this will not appeal, or be a popular program to people all over the country, it does not get run. So ITVS believes it will provide a place in which some of those alternative programs can be made. Although, I must say that cannot be our exclusive strategy. Senator HARKIN. Well, Mr. Schott, thank you very much for being here. And I wish you the best in terms of your initial year. This committee will certainly do what we can to continue our support. Mr. SCHOTT. We thank you for your continuing support, sir. STATEMENT OF DR. LEWIS JUDD, NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR THE MENTALLY ILL Senator HARKIN. Next is Dr. Lewis Judd from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. And again, your statement will be made a part of the record at this time. Dr. JUDD. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Dr. Lewis Judd. I am currently the chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, but for the last 3 years, up until mid-October, I was the director of the National Institute of Mental Health here in Washington. And I am speaking this morning on behalf of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which is the fastest growing, largest mental health advocacy group in the United States today, with over 130,000 and 1,000 chapters and involve your State and others on the committee. Mr. Chairman, I have a written testimony which I would respectfully request to submit for the record. And in the short time that I have before the committee this morning, I would like to cover several points with the committee. First, I am here to talk on behalf of the budget of the National Institute of Mental Health. As you well know, the NIMH is the focal point in the Federal Government and for the Nation concerning issues of mental illness and mental health. The NIMH has, as its mandate, to exercise national leadership, and to also provide science-based answers for all the problems that plague the mentally ill in this country. This is a very, very broad mandate, and a very important one because we are increasingly finding that the mythology in this country that mental illnesses are rare is not true. The fact is that NIMH science has fully established that mental disorders are among the most common and disabling disorders that human beings experience. At any one point in time, 12.6 percent of our population is afflicted with a mental disorder which requires a diagnosis and an artful and scientific treatment. Mental disorders cost this country $129 billion in direct costs and lost productivity each year. But as grim as these statistics are, this is a time of great hope. We have made phenomenal progress in the last 15 years. In fact, more progress in beginning to solve the mental disorders and mental illnesses, than in all of recorded history prior to this time. This is a scientific field that is on the move. It is a scientific field that is growing exponentially. And it is a scientific field that is really delivering on its promissory notes. And it is on that basis that NAMI and the Ad Hoc Biomedical Research Coalition are advocating and supporting and urging your consideration of a budget for the NIMH for this year of $867.9 million. That is $209.1 million over that of the administration's request at this point in time. The rationale for this is that this is money that will be well spent, efficiently spent on superb science and on superb demonstration research programs. The time has come for us to begin to make a fundamental and important investment in largely solving these mental disorders. With this level of budget, Mr. Chairman, the NIMH will be able to continue this momentum in science that has occurred in the last few years thanks to appropriations from this committee under your leadership. It will be able to fund 30 percent of approved grants, and be able to initiate the major national plans that the Institute is at the current time implementing: the national plan for schizophrenia research, the Decade of the Brain research plan, and the national plan for child and adolescent mental disorders. In addition, the Institute council will soon submit to this committee a new national plan to focus on improving care for individuals with severe mental disorders in this country. We urge your consideration of this. PREPARED STATEMENT There are times, Mr. Chairman, really in the history of every biomedical research discipline when the conceptual framework combines with the scientific technology to restructure and reorient an entire field and to thrust it forward in a quantum leap of progress. That is precisely what is happening at the NIMH today. And we would urge your strong consideration to maintain that thrust by the consideration of the budget that NAMI and the others are requesting for the NIMH of this year, $867.9 million. We are prepared to answer any questions you may have. [The statement follows:] STATEMENT OF DR. LEWIS L. JUDD Thank you Chairman Harkin, it is indeed a pleasure to appear before you and this distinguished Subcommittee today in behalf of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) of which I am a member. As you know, ten years ago, a grassroots group of people; consumers, families and friends dedicated to conquering serious mental illness, created NAMI. As you also know, we have learned more about the brain in the last 10 years, than in all previous years of research. I do not think these two events are unrelated. - The Decade NAMI's mission, now entering its second decade of the Brain - quality of life for those who suffer from these no-fault brain diseases. From 1980, we have grown to over 1,000 affiliates nationwide and approximately 130,000 members. Mr. Chairman, I quote: "We must also expand our research efforts if we are to learn more about how to prevent and treat the crippling or malfunction of the mind." Mr. Chairman, those words were contained in the Message To The Congress from President John F. Kennedy on February 5, 1963. He emphasized in that Message, "Although we embark on a major national action program for mental health, there is still much more we need to know. We must not relax our effort to push back the frontiers of knowledge in basic and applied research into the mental processes, in therapy, and in other phases of research with a bearing upon mental illness." that we know Now, just last month, President Bush's Coordinator for the Decade of the Brain effort, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, wrote in NAMI's research quarterly, The Decade of the Brain, "It has always seemed astonishing to me vastly more about the first microsecond of the existence of our universe, or about the constituents of any atom, or about the interior of the sun, than we do about the three pounds of tissue inside our own heads. Brain research is truly one of the great frontier areas of science it is a frontier that promises enormous practical payoff in the form of new treatments and possibly new ways of prevention." |