by Sasha ‘Go the extra mile,’ you’re thinking, as you lie on your sofa. ‘I can’t go the extra inch. This isn’t some sponsored walk thing, is it?’ No, my friends, it’s not. It’s an exercise in financial efficiency – oh, the fun! – that will allow even the most broke among us to have a go at raising some
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by Sasha On June 6, the Norwegian Medical Research Council agreed to give a large enough grant to the Haukeland Rituximab trial for the study to begin. Later that day, the charity Invest in ME announced that they were initiating a UK Rituximab trial. It seemed to come out of nowhere. There were no details – cost, size, location, research
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by Sasha Amazon.com, Inc.: it’s huge! It’s the biggest online retailer in the world and, weirdly, we can easily divert some of its mighty river of money into Phoenix Rising’s coffers. For free! Free, my friends! First I’m going to tell you how to do it and then I’m going to tell you why. How to make Amazon give Phoenix
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by Sasha After pushing so hard for so many of our organizations in these online voting contests, it’s refreshing to ask you to vote for us this time! Both Phoenix Rising and PANDORA are in the Bogs (lovely name) Footwear contest in which the top two charities will each win $2,500 (£1,700, €1,900), and we can all vote for both.
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by Sasha Imagine that you’ve just been put in charge of the world’s ME/CFS research – yes, you – and you’ve got to decide what research you want. Come on, hurry up! Erm, erm, erm… oh yes, well, of course, as a patient you want something that’s going to get practical benefit for you in the shortest time possible. You’ve
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by Ryan Prior On June 10, I announced in USA Today that I am setting out to write and co-direct a documentary film — The Blue Ribbon — on ME/CFS with my girlfriend, Nicole Castillo, who is a filmmaker with a special interest in medical and social justice projects. I am a writer and researcher who has had ME/CFS for over six
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by Sasha On 9 March, ME/CFS patient Dr Maria Gjerpe started a 90-day campaign to raise $1.2 million (£780,000, €920,000) to fund a confirmatory trial of the effects of immune drug Rituximab on the disease at Haukeland Hospital in Norway. Ninety days because that’s all she could confidently commit: she herself had gone from bedridden to completely well on Rituximab
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by Sasha I’m writing this the morning after an unprecedented win for our community in an online voting competition. On 1 June, one of our charities, MEandYou, pulled in an astonishing 8,000 votes in only four days in the Stormberg contest. The highest previous level I can remember was less than half that and took several weeks to achieve. MEandYou
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Mark takes a look at what’s going on around the world this weekend to mark International Awareness Day May 12th is International Awareness Day for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Awareness Day events also recognize Fibromyalgia (FM), Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), Lyme Disease, and other chronic neuro-endocrine-immune diseases (NEIDs). Awareness Week runs from May 12th-18th, and
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by Sasha I call Dr Maria Gjerpe’s 90-day campaign to raise money for a crucial confirmatory Rituximab trial a ‘fundraising marathon’ but that hardly covers it. It’s more like a triathlon a day for three months. Maria, previously bedridden for years with ME/CFS, has been working 12-hour days non-stop to fund the Phase III trial on the drug that has,
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by Sasha Probably the easiest money we’ll ever raise is up for grabs in an online voting contest in which UK research charity Invest in ME is a frontrunner. Anyone can vote, from anywhere in the world, and you vote just once, but you need a Google or Facebook account to do so (or to be willing to spring for
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Dr. Maria Gjerpe, an ME patient for 30 years, explains how and why MEandYou are going to crowdfund a Rituximab study. Within 90 days we are going to raise 7 million Norwegian krone ($1.2 million) to fund a study on 140 ME/CFS patients at Haukeland Hospital in Bergen, Norway. Will we – the patients, relatives, friends – be the first
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