It is very easy.
Go to http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Type in your zip code. Your Representatives will pop up, along with contact links.
Fill out the form. (You only have to do this the first time. It will fill automatically in the future.)
Paste your message into the box and click Send!
This is the message I sent to my Representatives. Feel free to use it.
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Recently, the IOM released its report on Gulf War Illness recommending that the illness be named “Gulf War Illness” and that the two existing case definitions be used.
In short, the IOM has done exactly nothing since they were hired four years ago– for $850,000 – to come up with a case definition. The illness, they said had “too many symptoms.”
HHS has now hired IOM to “define” Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) – another complex illness with many symptoms - to the tune of 1 million dollars. And, like the committee hired to review GWI, the IOM committee for ME/CFS is primarily composed of non-experts – people who have no research or clinical experience with the disease.
Fifty of the world's top ME/CFS experts have formally protested the IOM contract to Secretary Sebelius. They have pointed out that there already is a case definition for ME/CFS designed by experts, the Canadian Consensus Criteria, and that having non-experts devise a new definition will set research and patient care back by decades.
These experts are backed by thousands of patients, some of whom publicly voiced their opposition to the contract on January 27, 2014 at the IOM public meeting.
Jim Binns, chair of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses says, "The conclusions of the report show that it was a waste of money. The committee never had the expertise or the process to do a case definition.”
The current IOM process to review and redefine ME/CFS is an even bigger waste of money. It also a waste of time, which patients who are desperately ill with this disease cannot afford to lose.
Please support us by asking HHS to cancel the IOM Review of Diagnostic Criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and to follow the recommendation made by the experts: Immediate adoption of the Canadian Consensus Criteria for ME/CFS.