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The regular season is over – it’s playoff time for the Chase Community Giving Contest for large non-profits…..time to win some BIG MONEY for CFS research.
This is a unique opportunity. Increasing govt funding for ME/CFS has been agonizingly difficult given the negative attitudes towards ME/CFS and it’s pretty darn clear, with the NIH suffering significant cuts this year, that funding is not going to increase significantly this year or the next. Given the smaller pot of funds available now, winning grants -always a difficult task for any CFS researcher – is going to be more difficult than ever.
But Chase Community Giving (funded by JP Morgan Chase) has given CFS research a kind of life line; a chance to win some big money in a time of dearth and to put that money directly into the hands of excellent researchers. Plus there’s no one to convince, no office to call, no one to flash any stats at..all it takes is voting on Facebook….and spreading the word.
We’re talking about major inputs of funds into these organizations. Based on the prior voting the WPI could bring in $200,000 – a 20-30% increase in their research budget. The CAA would bring in $25,000, a nice chunk of change, in itself but they could easily do much better.
The contest begins May 19th and lasts until May 25th.
How To Vote?
Since the contest takes place on Facebook you need a Facebook account to vote.
- I do not have a Facebook Account – go to www.facebook.com and quickly create a page. Since you must ‘like’ Community Chase Giving first in order to vote go to Community Chase’s Facebook page https://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving and click on the ‘Like’ button. Now use links below to vote.
- I have a Facebook Account But Have Not Voted Before – You must ‘like’ Community Chase Giving first in order to vote. Go to https://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving and click on the ‘Like’ button. Now use the WPI and CAA links below to go to their Chase Pages to vote.
- I have a Facebook Account And Have Voted Before – go to the URL’s below and vote!
The Organizations
The WPI – the WPI’s discovery of XMRV in the blood of people with ME/CFS has spurred more research and interest in CFS than any other in history. Prior to the XMRV discovery the WPI was doing ground-breaking work in pathogen detection and immune functioning. A recent paper on immune signatures indicated the WPI was able to detect dramatic differences in cytokine levels – a startling finding that could promise much. This summer the WPI will open the largest and most sophisticated ME/CFS clinic in existence. They are a natural choice for people with ME/CFS.
The CFIDS Association of America – love them or hate them for their work in other areas its clear that the CAA has funded potentially ground-breaking research work into ME/CFS. The CAA’s ‘star’, Gordon Broderick turned a $100,000 CAA grant into a 4 1/2 million dollar NIH/DOD grant to study the effects of exercise on immune and nervous system functioning. Both Dr. Light, Dr Shungu and Dr. Huber were able to turn CAA seed money into rare NIH grants to study aberrant receptor functioning, mitochondrial problems in the brain and reactivated endogenous retroviruses in ME/CFS.
Other researchers under the CAA’s umbrella are doing cutting edge work in Epstein-barr virus, identifying blood vessel problems and characterizing the ‘flora’ of the largest immune reservoir in the body – the gut. The CAA is primarily a research organization now…if you believe we need more money for innovative research into the causes of ME/CFS – voting for them, in my opinion, is a no-brainer…