With 476,000 new cases and counting each year, a donation to Global Lyme Alliance is more critical than ever
With so many worthy causes to choose from, how do you know where to best lend your support on Giving Tuesday and for year-end giving? A gift to Global Lyme Alliance (GLA), the leading non-profit organization committed to helping those affected by Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, is one that could change the life of someone you love—or change your own. With 476,000 new Lyme disease cases each year, we are all one tick bite away from dealing with the potentially devastating effects of tick-borne disease. A gift to GLA is a gift towards innovative research to ultimately find a cure for this insidious illness.
Why is Lyme Disease Funding Important?
Lyme disease is a global health crisis, impacting almost half a million people in the U.S. each year, and millions of others around the world. While many patients are treated successfully, others develop persistent, serious symptoms that destroy their lives. Challenges in diagnosis and treatment make chronic Lyme disease even more likely.
Innovative research is crucial to meeting these challenges, but Lyme disease receives disproportionately lower funding than other infectious diseases. Lyme has more cases annually than HIV/AIDS, West Nile virus, and Malaria combined, but it receives only a fraction of the research funding allocated to these diseases. This gap in funding hinders scientific advancement while astronomically increasing healthcare costs as countless patients continue to suffer.
Why is GLA the Best Steward for Lyme Funding?
A gift to the Global Lyme Alliance is not only a gift towards cutting-edge research; it also supports efforts to increase awareness and empower the patient voice. Together, these pillars of our mission make GLA a global leader in shifting the paradigm of Lyme disease. GLA's endeavors have enlisted nearly 50 scientists from academia and biotech companies, who have published more than 130 articles in over 70 scientific and medical peer-reviewed journals.
To date, GLA has achieved several significant milestones, including:
- Leading the groundbreaking research discovery of hygromycin A, an antibiotic that selectively kills Lyme bacteria without harming beneficial bacteria or disturbing the gut- microbiome. Implications of this far exceed the scope of Lyme disease.
- Establishing the first-ever academic research center for chronic Lyme at Columbia University, with a $2 million dollar endowment.
- Identifying and funding researchers who are creating improved diagnostics, including a rapid test for Lyme and a test for the co-infection Babesiosis.
- Supporting the world’s only pediatric Lyme biobank and its associated Pedi Lyme Net, a network of eight emergency room departments in Lyme-endemic areas around the country.
- Providing Patient Support and Education initiatives including physician referrals, peer mentoring, and an ambassador program.
- Launching the first-ever TV PSA about Lyme disease, running on TV networks across the US and in Times Square, featuring celebrity ambassador Christopher Meloni.
GLA has a Scientific Advisory Board, modeled after the NIH, that is composed of the top researchers and clinical innovators across multidisciplinary fields in Lyme and other vector-borne diseases. They ensure that donations made to GLA are directed to research projects that have the best prospects of delivering measurable results and will have the most significant impact for patients. GLA also has a Medical Advisory Board to facilitate in-depth conversations between physicians and health care practitioners with decades of experience treating the toughest Lyme disease cases. This allows GLA’s research program to consider the all-important patient voice when deciding what specific areas of research to support. Future research that we plan to support includes pursuing answers to the neuropsychiatric effects of Lyme disease in children, earmarking research for pediatrics as well as looking into the vector-borne illness Bartonellosis.
GLA relies entirely on the generosity of donors like you. Your contribution directly translates into increased research and enhanced patient service programs for those affected by Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.
How Can I Support GLA?
There is much work to be done. GLA has the team to do it, but cannot do it alone! To make a donation to GLA this Giving Tuesday or for your year-end giving, visit GLA.org/donate. Every dollar gets GLA closer to within reach of a cure.
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