For Donors and Partners

	Seligman Medical Institute A medical research foundation devoted to the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of Tension Myositis Syndrome and other mind-body disorders.
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For Prospective Donors, Benefactors, and Research Partners...

"After suffering from back pain for fifteen years, I learned about TMS, a simple method to treat it, and my pain is gone. I wanted to help others learn about this. Would you too like to help?"

— SMI Benefactor and Former Back Pain Patient

Compared with other conventional and alternative treatment modes, our approach is completely non-invasive, non-pharmacological, and relatively inexpensive. Should this approach be accepted into the medical mainstream, it could easily save the U.S. economy alone well into the tens of billions annually. Research like the projects we are conducting is critical to gaining mainstream medical acceptance. However, research is not free, and the pharmaceutical companies, who are the largest benefactors of conventional medical research, are unlikely to profit from our work. Instead it is the payers of health care services, such as HMOs, health insurers, government health care agencies, employers, and even patients who stand the most to gain. Accordingly, if chronic back pain or other chronic pain syndromes are a serious problem for you, in terms of either economics or quality of life, you may want to consider supporting us.

What You Gain by Helping

If you are a medical school, HMO, or major pain clinic...
This is a ground-floor opportunity to participate in breakthrough research in treating one of the most intractable challenges facing modern medicine today — chronic, nonspecific pain. SMI is a research and educational institute that does not treat patients. Therefore, we need to collaborate with organizations who can provide the necessary volunteer patient-subjects, IRB oversight, physical facilities, and possibly research consultation to complete our work. If your organization treats large numbers of chronic back pain patients, we are interested in working with you in our upcoming clinical trial and brain imaging studies.

If you are a large employer...
As an employer, you may not consider yourself to be a part of the health care system, but you are. Unless your employees have significant, alternative sources of income, it is you who ultimately pay their medical bills — be it directly, in the form of group insurance, or indirectly, in the form of wages and salaries at levels that are sufficient to hire and retain them. According to a recent article in Newsweek, back pain costs the U.S. economy over $100 billion annually and is the second most common reason (after colds and flu) for missing work. If you are seriously interested in lowering your health care costs, finding a safe, effective, and inexpensive treatment for back pain is a good place to start — and it is completely tax deductible. Our non-profit tax ID number is: 01-0792167.

Or, if you are just a concerned individual...
You gain the personal satisfaction of knowing that you have significantly contributed to the elimination and alleviation of literally millions of man-years of human pain and suffering — along with a legitimate income tax charitable deduction. Our non-profit tax ID number is: 01-0792167.

How to Contribute

If you are an HMO, medical school, or pain clinic that would be interested in collaborating with us in our research, please contact Dr. Schechter at 310-836-2225..

If you are an individual or organization interested in supporting us financially, click here to display the contribution form in a separate browser window. Then print the form, fill it out, and mail it to us along with a check for your contribution. We will confirm receipt of the donation within 30 days after receiving it. All donations gratefully received.

Most contributions are made by check. Sorry, but we are unable to accept online contributions at this time. Should you wish to contribute by credit card, call Dr. Schechter's office at (310) 836-2225 (Culver City, CA, USA) or (310) 657-1022 (Beverly Hills, CA, USA), where he is set up to receive credit card donations on SMI's behalf.