I'm certainly not implying that there aren't major non-government research efforts out there. Perhaps even more effective in some cases. But simply by sheer n

I'm certainly not implying that there aren't major non-government research efforts out there. Perhaps even more effective in some cases. But simply by sheer numbers, 2016 NIH proposed budget is $31.3 billion (http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/ http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/). That's a single year. The entire endowment of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (if the numbers are up-to-date on Wikipedia) is worth ~$19 billion. According to some basic info I've found online it appears March of Dimes averages approximately $200 million per year in donations. $30+ billion is already alot, but, given the right circumstances, at the drop of a hat a future president might be so bold to ask to redirect even more of the US Federal government's ~$4 trillion annual budget toward those efforts.