Ten Percent of U.S. House Representatives Show Support for ME

Yes, you read right!  Thanks to the incredible community outreach over the course of just a few days, TEN percent of the House of Representatives signed a letter to the chairs of the House Appropriations Committee advocating for ME/CFS. Forty-four members from twenty states and the District of Columbia signed on – thirteen more than signed last year’s letter.
If your House representative signed the letter, please take a minute to call or email them thanking them for their support, or post a note of thanks on their Facebook page. Many thanks to Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo who, again, led their colleagues in championing our cause. Please thank them, also, for their support. And if your member did not sign despite your request, you can also ask them why not!
The letter provided the justification for including ME/CFS recommendations in the Appropriations Report for Fiscal Year 2019 starting 10/1/19.  We are especially pleased that for the first time our representatives recognized the (1) need to increase research funding for ME/CFS to better reflect the disease burden, and to bring funding in line with other similarly burdensome diseases, and (2) NIH’s ability to dedicate more funding to ME/CFS since the NIH received its largest budget increase in recent years.
Read the full letter.   
In brief, the proposed report language:
(1) Supports continuation of the $5.4 million ME/CFS funding for the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC),
(2) Encourages CDC to resolve ME/CFS case definition issues and expand its efforts to educate health care providers,
(3) Recommends that NIH create a strategic plan for ME/CFS research and increase the amount and types of funding,
(4) Urges the Department of Health and Human Services to devise a multi-year strategic plan. The sign-on letter states that the increases in NIH’s budget affords NIH the opportunity and ability to increase funding to better reflect the ME/CFS disease burden.
Learn more or get involved with our Congressional advocacy work. Get in touch at [email protected].

Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Email

2 thoughts on “Ten Percent of U.S. House Representatives Show Support for ME”

  1. Hello,
    I just submitted an article to our local (Santa Rosa Press Democrat) on ME/CFS.
    My I submit it to you as an email attachment? If so, can you give me an appropriate email address to send?
    thank you
    Mark Jaqua

    1. I am interested in receiving more information about your organizations. I am a SVP Hemispherx Biopharma,INC. My responsibilities are Patient Relations, Regulatory Compliance, Administration and Security.

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Graphic of yellow canary over black and white photo of a coal mine. Text reads "Canary Corps"

CANARY CORPS – Alison’s Story

Have you registered yet to join us this Wednesday, December 6th at 4pm ET / 1pm PT for a community presentation introducing the Canary Corps program? Ahead of Wednesday’s event we wanted to share with you Alison’s story. Alison Sbrana will be co-presenting this event, and much of the design of Canary Corps has been

Read More »
A rectangle image with a blueish/purple background. The words, "A Year of Exciting Medical Education Achievements" is in white font on the left hand side with the #MEAction logo underneath. On the righthand side is an image of Jaime Seltzer with a step and repeat and poster at the SDMI conference.

A Year of Exciting Medical Education Achievements

A year ago, we were proud to announce that #MEAction and Mayo Clinic Rochester had won a grant for diagnostic improvement, with Ravindra Ganesh, and Stephanie Grach, and I on the grant as co-investigators. Our project, Improving Diagnostic Accuracy of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Through Implementation of an Enhanced Education Protocol and Care Process Model

Read More »
a light orange rectangle with a burnt orange outline. in the box, there are orange flag garlands hanging in both top corners with orange confetti in the middle and at the top. in the bottom corners fall leaves. in the middle of the box the word, "OUR BOLDEST THANKS" in burnt orange. the #MEAction logo at the bottom.

#MEAction Shares Our Thanks for Your BOLD ACTIONS

During this time of thankfulness and gratitude, #MEAction staff wants to share what BOLD ACTIONS we are thankful our volunteers and community have taken throughout the year. We thought we could reflect together on all that we have accomplished this year and how every single one of us is important in this powerful community. A

Read More »