NEWS

#MEAction is once again thrilled to share a new book, Invisible Illness: Coming of Age, Chronic Illness, and a Mother's Will to Survive, with you by author Lauren Saikkonen! This book is an autobiography that covers Lauren’s entire life, but heavily focuses on her battle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, ME, and fibromyalgia. You can purchase this book on Amazon-- get a copy here! Lauren has graciously offered to donate a portion of her proceeds to #MEAction for all books purchase

#MEAction and Body Politic* are excited to collaborate with Home Test To Treat to share their critically important resource! Acute COVID-19 treatment and testing is unfortunately becoming harder and harder to access with the U.S. government public health emergency having been declared ended. The Home Test To Treat pilot program is a way to fill that gap in an accessible and equitable way. Home Test To Treat is helping to address some of the serious socioeconomic/healthcare ac

#MEAction is excited to announce community member, Elizabeth Ansell, created a new website, #NotJustFatigue, launching today, March 1, 2024! This website was created with the hopes it will help describe ME to those who do not know anything about ME. It is a site for people to share with their family and friends. #MEAction is listed on the website as an organization for people to support financially for ongoing research and advocacy.Elizabeth provided us with a short interview

With it being Black History Month, it was crucial to me to make sure we spotlighted someone from the ME/CFS and Long COVID community who is Black. Being Black and disabled is an entirely different experience. Not only do we deal with ableism, but we also deal with racism, especially medical racism. According to the Journal of Women's Health, “Black women continue to experience excess mortality relative to other U.S. women, including—despite overall improvements among Black wo

Exciting news: #MEAction revamped our volunteer program for the new year! We are honored to have wonderful volunteers including people with ME, Long Covid, and other associated conditions as well as our caregivers, allies, and wider communities. Volunteering with #MEAction can and does make all the difference. We invite you to join our program!Our new volunteer program allows you to be put into a working group that uses your skills. Currently, we are offering working groups t

Last fall, #MEAction partnered with the Writers Guild Initiative (WGI) to offer writing workshops to twenty-five community members. #MEAction believed this partnership was beneficial to our community because self expression in the disability community is essential and writing allows us to get our thoughts and emotions onto paper. #MEAction recognizes writing as one of the ways we as a community are able to share our truths to create change and build awareness. There is power

On January 17th, 2024, #MEAction convened a constructive meeting with Dr. Ian Simon, the newly appointed director of the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).The Office of Long COVID Research and Practice staff demonstrated a willingness to understand the connection between ME and Long COVID. As articulated during the meeting, a fundamental principle guiding their work is the mantra, “nothing about us without

As many of you know, we lost a wonderful person recently. Beth Mazur passed away after battling ME for 15 years. She was the cofounder of #MEAction and a selfless beacon of hope and light for so many in our community. She demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the cause. We could not be more devastated. Beth put her whole self into the fight for equity for people with ME. Every person with ME mattered more to Beth than you will ever know. We join the family in inviting you

We are sharing some sad news. Please put your health first. Content warning for sharing the loss of a community member.

Two years ago, #MEAction embarked on an ambitious project, the Chronic Illness Survey Adventure! The Adventure is a survey to deeply examine the symptoms experienced by people with diseases that are triggered or unmasked by infection, including ME, POTS, hEDS, MCAS, and Long COVID.  At the end of this year, we will close the Adventure with over 1.5 million data points illustrating the connections between these diseases’ symptom presentation, and what makes each disease– and e

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 has so far produced: • Updates to the Mayo Clinic public-facing page on ME/CFS • A new diagnostic

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 community who never ceases to amaze us with BOLDNESS, STRENGTH, COMPASSION, and VULNERABILITY!#MEAction is able to do what we do, because of you! You ar

Great news! About six months ago, we began a project to update, expand, and revamp MEpedia. Due to a generous grant, we were able to create a project scope, hire respected experts in accessibility and MediaWiki development, and make several important changes to MEpedia!MEpedia is a Vital ResourceMEpedia is one of the most utilized resources for researchers, clinicians, and people living with ME/CFS, with over 36 million page views.  However, the software running MEpedia, Medi

#MEAction is thrilled to announce a new travel scholarship for providers and medical students to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Conference, Advancing ME/CFS Research: Identifying Targets for Intervention and Learning from Long COVID, this coming December 12- 13, 2023 in Bethesda, MD.  #MEAction is providing this opportunity for one to two promising medical students (MD, DO, NP,  or PA)  and one to two practicing medical providers (MD, DO, NP, or PA). All scholarshi

#MEAction is excited to announce we are partnering with the Writers Guild Initiative (WGI) to offer creative writing workshops for people with ME and Long COVID**. WGI has graciously donated their time to offer these writer workshops through personal mentorship with the writers of the #MEAction community! The workshops consist of three sessions during the weekends in November. The WGI’s mission is to make the art of storytelling accessible to people of all ethnic, cultural, a

#MEAction is thrilled to share the incredible work our State Chapters have been up to over the past couple of months! They continue to amaze us daily with their dedication and hard work to bring awareness to the ME community. Read more about their success stories:California: • The University of California has added some disclaimers about the harm of exercise therapy in its Long COVID modules; however, further corrections are still in order. • We have continued successful mont

We are writing this article to share some exciting news!On Tuesday, September 26, ME advocates delivered copies of the book, The Puzzle Solver, by Tracie White with Ronald W. Davis, PhD, along with information about ME and Long Covid to Senators on the Hill. The books were donated by an individual living with severe ME/CFS in an effort to raise awareness and delivered by health allies. Advocates will return next session to deliver books to the remaining Senate offices.Myalgic

RSVP TODAY: We are hosting a preview party for the new, virtual Home of the #MillionsMissing this Sunday, September 24th, at 12 pm PT/ 3 pm ET/ 8 pm BST!We have always had to be creative in telling Our Story - the story of M.E. - to the world since so many of us cannot protest in the streets. How do we shine a light into our darkened rooms and demand the world’s attention? We started with shoes. Send in your shoes with a tag to tell your story. We will show the world that you

Announcing #MEAction and Body Politic’s new collaboration: we are excited to announce that #MEAction will now host Body Politic’s advocacy work as a project of #MEAction. Many of you know that Body Politic’s support group has officially closed. This was a devastating loss to the community – we know so much of the Long COVID and ME community have mourned the shutdown of their wonderful space and continue to grieve this loss. #MEAction knew we must keep the advocacy work alive

#MEAction is thrilled to announce our Severe ME Artists Project 2023 that will feature work from those within the severe ME community and will be in recognition of Severe ME Day on August 8th! This project will be an opportunity for those with severe ME to showcase your artwork, whether it be writing, photography, drawing, or any other way that illustrates their talents. You can also submit past artwork created before you got sick.The Severe ME Artists Project 2023 will featu