AHDA - Action Needed!

Help end the federal neglect of chronic disabling headache disorders

The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (AHDA) is working toward ensuring that our lawmakers appreciate the urgent need to ease the tremendous burden of migraine and headache disorders. Please take a moment and sign this petition.

There is so little funding for migraine and headache research, and yet the impact of these disorders extends to so many people.

• Chronic headache disorders, including migraine, are among the top 20 causes of disability in the US according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• 19% of Americans will experience an attack of some form of migraine this year.
• 75% of Americans with episodic migraine are women, predominantly of child-bearing age.
• 4% of Americans experience 4 hours of headaches per day, at least 15 days per month.
• Among veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts, 37% of servicemen and 57% of servicewomen reported ongoing migraine if there was a deployment history of concussive injury and any pre-deployment history of migraine.
• Migraine results in an increased risk of cardiovascular disease which has been linked to more than 1500 additional deaths in the US annually.
• Headache disorders, including migraine, are responsible for more than $31B in economic costs in the US annually.
• The WHO estimates that migraine causes more lost years of healthy life in the US annually than multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, ovarian cancer, and tuberculosis combined...
• ...in 2010, the combined NIH research funding for these four disorders ($684M) was more than 45 times greater than that for migraine ($15M).
• NIH funding for all research on headache disorders comprised less than 0.05% of the NIH budget in 2010.
• Only one innovative drug (sumatriptan), discovered, developed, and priority reviewed specifically for migraine treatment, has been FDA approved in the past 50 years.
• A total of only 290 American physicians have received Headache Medicine specialty training and are certified by the United Council on Neurologic Subspecialties.
• The US Congress has never held a public hearing devoted to headache disorders.

So, the AHDA is asking each of us to sign an on-line petition urging congressional hearings to be held on the impact of headache disorders. It takes only a minute to sign and they will deliver the signed petition to Congress. Please take a moment and sign this petition.

This post was written as part of the National Health Blog Posting Month (NHBPM).