NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 1999 /PRNewswire/ --Autoimmune diseases, which have long been considered rare, have moved to the top of the national women research agenda by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to a new report issued by NIH Office of Research on Women Health (ORWH) entitled, Agenda for Research on Women Health for the 21st Century.
Speaking at a briefing today sponsored by the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA), Vivian W. Pinn, M.D., director of ORWH, discussed details of the report, as well as various autoimmunity research initiatives at NIH, which number the greatest in history, including those co-sponsored by her office and others supported by a recent $30 million NIH appropriation.
Over the past decade, ORWH has been instrumental in the growing recognition of autoimmunity as a major women health issue and category of disease, like cancer and heart disease, with the same underlying cause -- autoimmunity, said Virginia T. Ladd, president and executive director of AARDA.
Traditionally, autoimmune diseases have been considered individually, rather than collectively, and thus, rare.
By naming autoimmunity a top research priority, NIH and ORWH have helped place autoimmunity in its proper perspective
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| Kellie Martin |
as a major cause of disability and chronic illness among women in the childbearing years, affecting as many as 30 million American women.
At the briefing, Ms. Ladd also announced that actress Kellie Martin, star of the NBC-TV drama ER, will serve as national spokesperson for AARDA. Ms. Martin will work to help raise awareness of autoimmunity as a major women issue and educate the public about the warning signs of autoimmune diseases,
new and promising research developments, and the need for a more coordinated, collaborative approach to diagnosing, treating and ultimately curing these diseases.
A Decade of Growing Recognition
According to pioneering autoimmunity expert, Dr. Noel R. Rose, professor of pathology, molecular microbiology and immunology at The Johns Hopkins University and chair of AARDA Scientific Advisory Committee, a confluence of factors over the past decade have led to today prioritization of
autoimmunity research. They include ORWH series of national scientific workshops and public hearings held to revise the national women research agenda; the growing body of basic and clinical research that has helped scientists understand some of the complexities of the highly complex immune system, including the autoimmune response; the work of organizations like AARDA that advocate a coordinated, collaborative approach to these diseases;
and, in 1999 the establishment of the Autoimmune Disease Coordinating
Committee within NIH to promote better communication and information sharing among the institutes.
Fortunately, advances in our understanding of the immune system, and its role in many diseases and disorders that had not previously been perceived as immunologically mediated, have helped to increase our knowledge and appreciation of the importance of autoimmunity in the health of women -- and men, explained Dr. Pinn.
She said that current NIH and ORWH research projects are building on what we already know and are aimed at closing some of the gaps in current knowledge. For example, Dr. Pinn cited a number of Autoimmunity Research Initiatives funded in 1999 through a $30 million Congressional-directed NIH appropriation
that ORWH is involved in, including the establishment of Autoimmune Centers of Excellence. Using a model developed for cancer research, these centers housed at academic institutions around the country will design and conduct basic, translational and clinical research in a coordinated, collaborative way.
Dr. Pinn also discussed other autoimmune disease research projects that ORWH is co-funding with other NIH institutes, such as one study that is looking at
the role of antioxidants and female hormones in the cause of rheumatoid arthritis.
Our hope is that this research can elucidate the causes, progression, prevention, and improved treatment of autoimmune disorders, said Dr. Pinn.
In terms of the new research agenda, she said ORWH is recommending studies focusing on the role of genetics, environmental influences, age, pregnancy, hormones, and other biologic influences on the cause(s) and progression of
autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmune Disease: The Personal Toll
The revised agenda also calls for better communication between the lay public and the scientific community in order to make information readily accessible to researchers, health care providers, and consumers - something Ms. Martin also advocates.
Recounting her own family experience with autoimmune disease with the loss last year of her l9-year old sister, Heather, from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Ms. Martin discussed the difficulty of getting a correct
diagnosis. She said that many of these difficulties could be alleviated and diagnoses facilitated if Autoimmune Multi-Disciplinary Diagnostic Triage Clinics were established. These AARDA-conceived clinics would allow patients, whose symptoms are confounding their own physicians, to see various medical specialists at one time, rather than going from doctor to doctor over the course of months or years.
Because these diseases cut across virtually every medical specialty from rheumatology and cardiology to neurology and dermatology and because doctors dont always share information, it critical that we bring together different specialists who can work together to diagnose and treat patients in a timely manner before irreparable damage is done to a patient organs, explained Ms. Martin.
According to AARDA, approximately 50 million Americans, 20 percent of the population or one in five people suffer from some 80 autoimmune diseases. Of these, the majority are women with perhaps 30 million affected. Autoimmune
diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, scleroderma and chronic active hepatitis are caused by immunity against one own body. It is the process whereby the immune system mistakenly recognizes the body own proteins as foreign invaders and produces antibodies that attack healthy cells and tissues, causing various diseases.
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