Summary excerpt from the Statement of Allergy & Asthma Network, Mothers of Asthmatics: Dr. Martha White is a pediatric allergist and founding board member of the Allergy & Asthma Network/ Mothers of Asthmatics, otherwise known as AAN/MA. Nancy Sander is a mother of an asthmatic child and the founder of AAN/MA, an organization which serves the informational and advocacy needs of over 100,000 families of asthmatic and allergic children and adults. In making therapeutic choice for their children, parents have to struggle daily with their need to balance their fear of long-term medication side effects with the realities of having a child with asthma. The availability of well controlled trials that demonstrate long-term safety and efficacy of available asthma therapies is a great comfort both to parents and physicians. However, many parents are reluctant to allow their own children to become “guinea pigs.” Reasons for this include the fear for their children’s safety, a reluctance to subject their children to the pain of needle sticks, a reluctance to take their children out of school for scheduled research visits, and the inconvenience and cost of missing work or disrupting the child’s routine to attend scheduled study visits. All four of these issues are potential targets of influence for public policy makers.