• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates up to 23.5 million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease and that the prevalence is rising.
  
• Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and can be life-threatening.
  
• Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age.
  
• A close genetic relationship exists among autoimmune diseases, explaining clustering in individuals and families as well as a common pathway of disease.
  
• Commonly-used immunosuppressant treatments lead to devastating long-term side effects.
  
• The Institute of Medicine reports that the US is behind other countries in research into immune system self-recognition, the process involved in autoimmune disease.  
  
• Understanding how to modulate immune system activity will benefit transplant recipients, cancer patients, AIDS patients and infectious disease patients. 
   

 Faces critical obstacles in diagnosis and treatment.

• Symptoms cross many specialties and can affect all body organs.
  
• Medical education provides minimal learning about autoimmune disease.
  
• Specialists are generally unaware of interrelationships among the different autoimmune diseases or advances in treatment outside their own specialty area.
  
• Initial symptoms are often intermittent and unspecific until the disease becomes acute.
  
• Research is generally disease-specific and limited in scope. More information-sharing and cross-over among research projects on different autoimmune diseases is needed. 

• NIH estimates up to 23.5 million Americans have an AD. In comparison, cancer affects up to nine million and heart disease up to 22 million.
  
• NIH estimates annual direct health care costs for AD to be in the range of $100 billion (source: NIH presentation by Dr. Fauci, NIAID).  In comparison, cancer costs are $57 billion (source: NIH, ACS), and heart and stroke costs are $200 billion (source: NIH, AHA).
  
• NIH research funding for AD in 2003 came to $591 million. In comparison, cancer funding came to $6.1 billion and heart and stroke to $2.4 billion (source: NIH).
  
• The NIH Autoimmune Diseases Research Plan states: “Research discoveries of the last decade have made autoimmune research one of the most promising areas of new discovery.”
  
• According to the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Women's Health, autoimmune diseases and disorders ranked #1 in a top ten list of most popular health topics requested by callers to the National Women's Health Information Center.