Press Release: The ME Association Is NOT Asking For Money This Christmas!

November 15, 2022

This Christmas national charity the ME Association will be bucking the trend by NOT asking its members for money. Instead, it will give them the chance to say ‘thank you’ to the people who support them – their unpaid carers.     

Members will be asked to nominate that special person in their lives and nominees will be entered into a draw to receive a hamper of seasonal treats. 

‘ME Research UK wishes to thank all members of the VEGEPA Club whose contributions helped us obtain Charity Champion funding and match funding which raised over £7700 in donations during The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2021.

Your pledge helped secure much needed  additional funds which will be invested in M.E. research globally.”

Ask anybody with ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) what they want for Christmas and they will say that they desperately want to feel better.

Well here’s your chance to help – to give Christmas presents that could be real #lifechangers.

ME Association believes that new research could be the best chance yet of finding a test, and hopefully of developing a treatment that will make a real difference to their lives.

Recent research in America shows that metabolomics research (examining the chemical details of cells) could help us to develop a simple test, and better still, a treatment for this devastating illness.

In an exciting new UK collaboration of ME experts (Dr Karl Morten, Prof James Mccullagh & Prof Julia Newton), we hope to develop that research, in the first significant use of samples from the newly launched UK ME/CFS Biobank to verify the initial findings, and help us to better understand the molecular and biochemical basis of the disease.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ME ASSOCIATION LINK

Thanks so much, Lynne.

You and your club numbers are just fab.

Your donation means that we have achieved over 25% of target of our £50,000 Christmas Appeal in just 12 days.

Thank you to Lynne and Vegepa Club for your marvellous donation to The ME Association’s Christmas Appeal. Thanks to your support, you’ve helped us to get over a quarter of the way towards our target.

Helen Fundraising Manager at The ME Association

You are amazing Lynne! What fruit from an idea and the persistence to carry it through and keep working no matter what. I am in awe!  Linda (Member)

Every bit helps so don’t be shy if you can only afford a very little donation! Simply add it to your total when you order.

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£2,600.35 is the amount we have donated so far just to the ME Biobank Research Fund – all down to you wonderful Members!

The Big Idea   To secure the future of the UK ME/CFS Biobank, an innovative resource which will allow collaborators worldwide to conduct cost-effective research into a poorly understood disease that causes great suffering.  

The Biobank is the only one of its kind in the UK, and the first in Europe.

Need   Robust biomedical research on ME/CFS is urgently needed. The mechanisms of the disease remain elusive; there is no uniform diagnosis – with current treatments restricted to symptom management.

Launched and sustained for the first three years by three ME charities and a private donor, the Biobank has never had state funding. This research facility is run by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine but there are no funds in place beyond 2016 to secure its future or widen its scope.

Solution   Research using Biobank samples has the potential to improve lives around the world as researchers strive to understand, diagnose, treat and one day cure the disease.

The Biobank is cost-effective as researchers can conduct their studies without recruiting additional participants themselves. Rather, they can use biological samples and data already collected and stored according to rigorous scientific protocols.

Thank you all for making our crucial donations possible. Let’s look forward to the day when they have a bona fide treatment and maybe even a cure for our ME! Donating to Biomedical Research is, for sure, the only way that’s ever going to happen.

Originally the manufacturer matched The Club’s donations but they recently decided to concentrate on another cause, Volunteer Reading Help, instead.

With the economic situation worldwide and the increasing difficulties of being on State Benefits, sadly we are donating at a slower rate nowadays but still with the same fervent desire to help achieve an iron-clad diagnosis, a treatment and, one day, a cure for ME.