 Action
Alert
Take 3 Minutes to
Tell Congress You Want a Vote on Parity Now!
Action:
On Friday, December 7, use the toll-free Parity Hotline,
1-866-parity4 (1-866-727-4894), to call your representative and senators
and leave a message urging their active support for the mental health and
addiction parity legislation. (The Parity Hotline reaches the U.S. Capitol
switchboard, which can connect callers to the offices of their members.)
Targets:
All members of the House
and Senate.
Message: “I
am calling to ask the senator/representative to not let another year go by
without passing mental health and addiction parity legislation. Please work
with the Leadership to pass parity now.”
Status of Parity:
S. 558, a compromise negotiated over the
previous two years, passed the Senate under unanimous consent on September
18.
H.R. 1424, approved by three House
committees, will next go to the Rules Committee and the House Floor.
We hope that the negotiations that are now underway
between the House and Senate are successful in devising one compromise bill
that can pass in both the Senate and House. The leadership of the Eating
Disorders Coalition believes that the bill that moves forward at this stage
should be acceptable to both the House and the Senate.
This session of Congress will end around December 21. If
parity is not passed by then the issue will lapse over into 2008, when many
expect it will be lost in an election year deadlock. With one massive
grassroots telephone call-in day we hope to impress Congress with a united
front that says the parity issue must not be set aside again.
Resources from the Congressional Budget
Office:
News
EDC: Federal Rules Hinder
Research on Eating Disorders
WASHINGTON November 2007 - The Eating Disorders Coalition is urging federal
officials to adopt new rules in order to promote research on prevention and
effective treatment. At a recent hearing in Washington, EDC Executive Director
Marc Lerro pleaded with officials from the
National
Institutes of Health to adopt guidelines proposed by the Academy for Eating
Disorders. The proposed guidelines would promote federal funding of eating
disorder research by revising the current process of peer review.
 "$21
million is not enough for the 9 million Americans who suffer from the disabling
and sometimes deadly effects of eating disorders," Lerro stated.1 "The EDC does
not want to ask Congress to determine research priorities, but the current peer
review barriers are preventing our researchers from getting the support that
they need."
According to sources at the National Institute of Mental Health,
approximately $21 million was spent on eating disorder-related research in 2006.
Currently, the NIH peer review rules meant to prevent conflict of interest
restrict many of the nation's leading eating disorder researchers from reviewing
proposals. Review groups often have none or only one person with eating
disorder expertise. The
Academy
for Eating Disorders has proposed two alternatives to the NIH Peer Review
Working Group that is advising NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni,
M.D. The NIH is likely to revise its current peer review process in 2008 based
upon feedback it is now collecting.
"Federal research for eating disorders is desperately under-funded." Lerro
said. "It can't come in time to help people like Jamie Lynn Harast, who died in
January, and who told her mother that fighting alcoholism was easy compared to
fighting bulimia.
"Lerro noted that the only federal report on eating disorder treatment
efficacy, published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ),
suggested several specific targets for future research. A copy of the report is
linked to the
EDC's Reports & Information Web page.
Susan
Kayne, communications director for the
National
Eating Disorders Association, presented a detailed description of the
Academy's proposed changes for peer review. The first recommendation calls for
at least two reviewers with clear expertise in the field. The second alternative
is a novel two-stage review process in which a brief summary of each proposal is
sent to a large number of researchers who provide a score. The top-rated
proposals would then be reviewed by a panel that includes at least two eating
disorder experts.
The NIH recently granted four awards to study adult Anorexia Nervosa.
(Information about federally funded clinical trials can be found online at
clinicaltrials.gov.) Still, the EDC and other groups are pressing for a
faster government response on eating disorders.
Lerro said, "We were clearly heard. The Academy created a thoughtful
solution. NEDA presented it. And the EDC made it real."
Photo: National
Institutes of Health (NIH)
Meet the New EDC Board Members
The Eating Disorders Coalition
for Research, Policy & Action welcomes two new members to the board
of directors. Katherine Brown, Ed.D., and Gail Kennedy have joined the
leadership of the Washington-based
public policy organization.
Katherine Brown of North Carolina
fulfills the term of Dr. Steve Emmett, who stepped down earlier this year. Dr. Brown holds a Doctor of Education
degree from National-Louis University and a Master of Science in Education
from Purdue University.
 Eating disorders activist Gail
Kennedy has an extensive corporate background, having worked for Coca-Cola
in Atlanta and Ernst & Young in New York, among others. She is a
resident of Washington, D.C. and has been involved in eating disorder
advocacy on Capitol Hill. |
Do you care about
these issues? Support the EDC.
We focus on Washington, D.C., and national policies on eating disorders.
We work with Congress, the federal government, the media, and others. From
our office across the street from the U.S. Capitol complex, we call
attention to the Americans struggling and dying from anorexia, bulimia,
binge eating, and eating disorders not otherwise specified.
Your donation will make a difference. No amount is too small or too
large. Click the button below to
donate online.
Or, mail a check payable to Eating Disorders Coalition,
to the address below.
Eating Disorders Coalition
611 Pennsylvania Avenue SE #423
Washington, DC 20003-4303 USA
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