In this Issue
Spring
2003
The CFIDS Chronicle
The Chronicle
is mailed quarterly to members of The
CFIDS Association of America. For information on how to join the
Association,
click
here.
Chronicle
Online. Issues of The CFIDS
Chronicle are now available online in the easy-to-read PDF
format.
Features
Chronicle Q&A: Why Advocacy
Matters
Endocrine Causes Of Chronic
Fatigue
By Theodore C. Friedman, MD, PhD and Camille Kimball
Seabiscuit Author Still Riding High
By Kim Kenney
Banbury Meeting Raises CFIDS
Profile
By Kim Kenney
Dental Amalgams: Harmless or
Toxic?
By Michael
D. Fleming, DDS
Complementary
Therapies: Yoga: Stretching Away Your Stress
By Mark
Giuliucci
Interest
Areas
Living With
CFIDS
Feed Your Soul Through The
Power of Creative Expression
By Lynne Quinnan
Zahler
Departments
Reader's
Forum
CFIDS
News
Association News
DC Dispatch
Research
News
Media
Watch
One to
One
Book Reviews
Message to Members
Lobby Day
makes our case — and here’s why
This issue’s cover story focuses on
advocacy, the art of making yourself heard. To conquer CFIDS, our community
needs strong, consistent advocates where it matters most: in
Washington,
D.C.
, where lawmakers and bureaucrats decide
which causes get funded and which fall by the wayside.
Advocacy is critical to our shared cause for three simple
reasons:
Advocacy works. I know this from firsthand experience.
At each Lobby Day we ask for a set of well-documented and clearly stated
actions, and year after year those actions occur. The allocation and/or
restoration of funds; the creation and promotion of advisory committees; the
establishment of education and training programs; the changing of regulatory and
reimbursement language — all these resulted from advocacy. Such progress happens
because, and only because, people like you and me travel to
Washington
and ask our elected
officials to make it happen.
Advocacy gratifies. It’s a great antidote for the
feelings of frustration and helplessness associated with CFIDS. Lobby Day allows
us to make meaningful contributions on many levels. We help each other prepare
our presentations, carry our materials and find our meetings. We represent those
people with CFIDS who are too sick to travel and speak for themselves. We
support the Association by populating the D.C. meetings with constituents. We
guide our elected officials by providing the faces and stories that inform their
decisions. We validate our democracy by communicating our collective needs in
Washington.
Advocacy matters. Advocacy matters because you matter.
It’s a contact sport that requires us to stand face to face with people who are
in a position to help, and then to ask for that help. Advocacy also requires us
to follow up with our elected officials back home, to be sure they and their
staff did what they promised to do. No association can substitute for this
grass-roots work. Your involvement will ensure that The CFIDS Association of
America makes a difference for us all.
The CFIDS Association retains professional lobbyists to push
our worthy agenda. But we need more than that. We need you to add your voice —
especially at this fall’s Lobby Day.
I hope to see you there!
Joseph P.
Lane
Board of Directors, The CFIDS Association of
America
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