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Autoimmune disease (AD) is a drastically underappreciated problem. There are 80-100 ADs, and researchers suspect that 40 additional diseases have an autoimmune element. AARDA estimates that 50 million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease, but there appears to be an increasing incidence in young adults. AD is responsible for a great deal of human suffering and $100 billion of healthcare costs. Even so, autoimmune research receives less than 3% of the total NIH, despite being the #2 cause of chronic illness.

Virginia Ladd was all too aware of the extent to which this segment of illness had been ignored when she founded the American Autoimmune-Related Disease Association. “I started the AARDA reluctantly,” says Virginia, “but I knew it had to be done, and no one else was going to do it.”