Nevada Center

Nevada CFIDS advocates, led by Annette and Harvey Whittemore, have been working with the University of Nevada-Reno and the state legislature to create and fund a world-class center for the study and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome and cancer. The Whittemores’ daughter Andrea has had CFIDS for 17 years. They have put $2 million of their own money into seed funding for the center and have promised to raise another $2 million in private funds. Members of their family, including Andrea’s sister, Natalie, and other advocates have testified in hearings about the bill creating the center and providing funding for it. Harvey Whittemore is an attorney in Reno and lobbies in the legislature on behalf of several clients. He is regularly included in lists of the state’s most powerful people.

On May 23, the state’s Senate Finance Committee approved $10 million for the center. It passed the Senate by unanimous vote on May 27 and by unanimous vote in the Assembly on June 5. However, funding battles over a host of education, health and public works programs kept legislators at work late into the night as the session drew to a close at 1 a.m. on June 7. The fate of the CFIDS-cancer center was not reported in local coverage of the budget compromises made in the final hours of the session. The legislature won’t convene again until 2007, except by special session – a measure the state tries to avoid given the $50,000 cost for each day it is held over.

Watch for an update on the Nevada center and other states’ initiatives in future issues of CFIDSLink and the CFIDS Chronicle.