MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDER
THANK YOU TO ALL ENDO ACTIVISTS OF THE WORLD
Dear Patients, Country Captains, Chapter Presidents, Precinct Managers, Ambassadors, EndoMarch Volunteers, Family members, and all Endo Activists & Supporters,
First and foremost, we would like to thank you for your selfless dedication, hard work, and advocacy to make this grassroots movement a success. You have answered the call to arms to help advance medicine and advocate for endometriosis patients the world over, so that the millions suffering from this devastating disease can receive urgently-needed improved treatment options, timely diagnoses at the onset of symptoms, a non-invasive diagnostic test, and a fast-track toward a cure.
Indeed, thanks to the efforts and initiatives of so many EndoMarch supporters & volunteers, we are pleased to report that this grassroots movement has gone viral internationally. Many governmental agencies, like the United Nations, have gotten involved to help young girls, women, and transgender individuals with endometriosis.
CNN & SENATOR HATCH ON ENDO:
“NOTHING SHORT OF A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY”
You also now see news coverage about endometriosis in the mainstream media much more often. For example, today, CNN published an op-ed about endometriosis written by Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah), who declared what we’ve been saying all along, that the lack of adequate research funding and awareness about endometriosis constitutes “nothing short of a public health emergency.”
MEDICAL SOCIETIES JOIN THE FIGHT FOR CHANGE
The most respected medical societies around the world also continue to support this noble cause, including the American Medical Association, the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, and the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, just to name a few. Collaboration with these and other medical societies is currently underway, so that, for example, standards of care protocols can be updated to address the urgent, unmet needs of endometriosis patients, while other collaborative efforts continue to focus on providing advanced training to the next generation of endometriosis excision surgeons.
GENOMICS-BASED 21st CENTURY MEDICINE
Greater awareness about the urgent issues facing the endometriosis community will also eventually lead to increased investments into 21st century precision medicine, which is key to achieving improved health outcomes based on the principles of individualized, genomics-based medicine.
NON-UTERINE ORIGINS OF ENDOMETRIOSIS: A RESEARCH PRIORITY
With more research funding, researchers can also continue investigating what the latest endometriosis studies support: that the pathogenesis of endometriosis is multi-factorial and includes causes that are non-uterine in origin, such as the metaplastic transformation theory, which was actually first postulated in the 19th century.
HYSTERIA: GOODBYE & GOOD RIDDANCE
And, finally, all of your Herculean efforts to set the world free from centuries of medical mythologies, like hysteria or Eve’s Curse, are also paying off and will usher in a shining new era, when patients no longer know more about endometriosis than their own health care providers, which is the current 21st Century reality that so many face today.
PROUD SUPPORTER OF THIS ENDO UNITED WORLD
These achievements would never have been possible without everyone’s united efforts, creative awareness campaign initiatives, and unwavering commitment to the cause. For this, we thank you all immensely again for your ongoing support and generous contributions.
Forward we go!
Camran Nezhat, MD, FACOG, FACS
