Under the direction of Debra Slade, the ICA's newly appointed Executive Director, the political action campaign is stepped up. A coordinated letter writing campaign by ICA patients is supplemented by further testimony before House and Senate Subcommittees by Vicki Ratner, MD and Mona Schlossberg. Face-to-face meetings with key health aides to Subcommittee Members add to the effectiveness of the testimony and letters. The NIH sponsors its first Medical Workshop on IC, bringing together researchers from all over the world to define diagnostic criteria for IC and to determine future directions for IC research. Dr. Philip Held, of the Urban Institute, presents the results of the first large-scale Epidemiological Study on IC.

In response to the 1986 RFA, 12 research proposals are received by the NIH. The University of California at San Diego and the University of Pennsylvania receive the first NIH funds for IC research.

The ICA's Third National Meeting takes place in Los Angeles.

Using proceeds from the ICA's first annual Raffle for Research, the ICA funds a Pilot Research Program on the mast cell at Tufts University.

In addition to further publicity on general interest television shows (CNN, Oprah Winfrey) and in general interest publications (Good Housekeeping, US News and World Report, The Washington Post, Glamour) several outstanding articles on IC appear in medical journals. The journal Urology produces a special issue on IC.