Arthritis Patients and Providers Appeal for Congressional Support

By Jill Tyrer | June 6, 2025

Luc Beck was 13 when he started having unexplained joint pain, swelling and other symptoms. He saw seven different specialists and received numerous diagnoses before he finally learned he had juvenile arthritis. He felt lost and alone, like no one could understand what he was experiencing or tell him what was really wrong with him.

Everyone who lives with arthritis has their own journey, but most kids and millions of adults diagnosed with some form of arthritis recognize this experience.

That’s why policymakers and legislators need to keep hearing from people like Luc and others who appeared recently on Capitol Hill to tell them their stories.

In partnership with rheumatologists and other health care professionals from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR,) Arthritis Foundation President and CEO Steve Taylor addressed policymakers on Capitol Hill recently to dispel myths about arthritis and to explain how cutting federal resources has real impacts on real people. Millions of people in the United States develop inflammatory, autoimmune forms of arthritis in addition to the 32-plus million adults with osteoarthritis, the most common, incurable form.

Too many people, including those who create policy around health care for arthritis, misunderstand the breadth of arthritis and other rheumatic diseases and the depth of their impacts not only on individuals and families, but individual finances and even the national economy in terms of health care costs, disability and lost wages.

Recent cuts to federal funding and reductions in staffing are affecting key arthritis programs that patients rely on. These programs provide resources that help patients improve their daily life and control pain every day, and we urge Congress and the Administration to reverse these decisions.

Cutting programs like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy Aging Branch and Arthritis Program is detrimental to Americans, especially those in rural areas where health care healthy living resources are hard to find and access, says Taylor. Eliminating these kinds of programs counteracts efforts to help Americans improve their own health and overcome chronic conditions — not just arthritis, but also obesity, heart disease, dementia and others.

The ability to manage one’s own arthritis through programs like Walk With Ease and other resources made possible by the CDC’s Arthritis Program is critical to patients’ ability to manage pain and tend to everyday tasks. The Arthritis Program provides important resources and partnerships with patients, county health departments and national partners, and it should be available in every state. In addition, losing the CDC’s funding for the Arthritis Foundation’s Helpline would be a critical loss for those who don’t have ready access to providers or resources, especially those in isolated situations or rural areas.

Budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health and research have a widespread impact to national, state and local economies, says ACR President Carol Langford, MD, MHS. Research funding is vital to finding and implementing better ways of quickly diagnosing and treating rheumatic diseases, like juvenile idiopathic arthritis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. If left undiagnosed and untreated for too long, then they can cause the kinds of permanent, debilitating damage that we used to see before modern medicines were developed. Because of research that led to the development of these life-changing medications, we now see patients running marathons rather than becoming wheelchair-bound, as they were just a few decades ago.

The Department of Defense (DoD) research has been working to unlock the mysteries of why arthritis impacts service members differently than civilians. Arthritis affects 1 in 3 active and veteran service members, and arthritis accounted for nearly 95% of medical discharges among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans injured in combat. DoD specific research includes bringing physical therapists to bases to train soldiers in ways to prevent joint damage.

And the DoD’s serum repository is “a goldmine for research,” says Dr. Colin Edgerton, researcher and former Army rheumatologist, which would be an inestimable loss. Furthermore, service members also are exposed to different infectious diseases and vaccines that are not prevalent in America; research in this unique population can show what impact those exposures have on disease outcomes.

Cuts are currently aimed at indirect costs, which are a critical part of research grants. They support Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews, grants management offices, legal counsel, overhead costs and other less obvious but vitally important elements that make research possible.

In addition to the immediate effects on real people of these cuts to federal programs and research, an urgent concern around research cuts today is the impact on the future of our research workforce and a chilling effect on young people’s interest in pursuing the profession, undercutting the United States’ reputation as a leading force in medical science and research.

Congress must understand the real, on-the-ground impacts these decisions are having on their constituents in every town and every state, and policymakers must work to reestablish and prevent further damage to these critical programs, staffing and funds.