Action Alert!!
We’re nearing the end of our Grassroots Action Center
awareness campaign. This alert will be followed by one to be sent on May 12,
CFIDS Awareness Day. From that point forward, we’ll issue Alerts! As timely
opportunities arise.
This week we focus our efforts on the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). It is the world’s largest biomedical enterprise, with a total
budget of $27 billion. Organized into 27 institutes and offices, the NIH
supports research by intramural scientists housed in its own labs and thousands
of extramural researchers working in universities, hospitals and other
institutions around the world.
Over the four-year period of 1999-2003, the NIH has reported
support of CFS research totaling $31.6 million. The amount is hardly adequate
for a disease that affects at least 800,000 American adults and children, costs
the U.S. economy nearly $9 billion a year and remains challenging to diagnose
and treat. We need NIH to redouble its efforts to find the cause(s) of CFIDS and
biomarkers and effective treatments for it.
In this Alert! you will find a letter addressed to Dr.
Zerhouni, director of the NIH, that you can use to voice your support for an
expansion of NIH support for CFIDS research. Dr. Zerhouni knows what CFIDS is,
thus we haven’t taken up space with a basic description of the illness. Instead,
we ask that you take an extra few minutes to "humanize" CFIDS. We’ve provided
room for you to express the impact that CFIDS has had on your life, or the life
of a loved one with the disease.
To participate in this week’s campaign,
please go to
http://www.cfids.org/,
and click on the Capitol Building icon on the left
navigational bar.
Last week, over 2,453 letters were sent to Secretary for
Health Tommy Thompson and key members of his staff. Since our campaign began on
April 16, more than 6,415 letters have been sent to lawmakers, media and public
health officials. We are beginning to receive notices that the Letter to the
Editor you helped circulate is being printed. Already The Advocate in Baton
Rouge, La. And The Capital in Annapolis, Mary., have published the letter. We’ll
keep you posted as the list grows.
Thank you for participating in the Grassroots Action Center
campaign. Send your letter to Dr. Zerhouni today, and continue spreading the
word using "Tell A Friend."
Please note: When sending the Alert it appears that you are
sending Dr. Zerhouni duplicate e-mails. However, Dr. Zerhouni has two separate
e-mail addresses and we will be sending one e-mail to each box.
K. Kimberly McCleary
President & CEO
The CFIDS
Association of America
P.S. Sign up for the Grassroots Action Center listserv so that
you continue receiving Action Alerts! after the intensive phase of our campaign
ends. Just check the box that follows the area where you fill-in your name and
address. Then confirm your request by replying to an e-mail message you’ll
receive from the site. (The confirmation e-mail is sent to ensure that Alerts!
are sent only to those who wish to receive them.)
