Re: Any celebrities with Lupus, etc?

[Guest guest]

, Vanna White from the wheel of Fortune has

lupus. Tami

Tami -Dossey

[Guest guest]

That is so funny, , I was thinking the same thing! I did a google

search on it, and then couldn't find anyone. I wonder why they're so quiet.

Tina, who won Survivor, has RA, but that's all I know of.

beanmommy2 <beanmommy2@...> wrote: For some odd reason I would

find it comforting to know of a celebrity

who has Lupus or something similar. Anyone know of any?

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Here's something that I found when I googled:

" Autoimmune disease " and " autoimmunity " were concepts that were not

even recognized or understood until the late 1950s. Even today, the

autoimmune diseases are a collection of disorders which are often

misdiagnosed, overlooked, or disregarded as something else, especially

early on in the course of the disease. Sometimes we hear about it - but

most likely we don't understand it - at least not fully. Princess

Caroline suffered for several years with alopecia which resulted in

baldness. Annette Funicello and Montel have been diagnosed

with multiple sclerosis. Tyler has suffered since childhood

with type I diabetes. Most recently, talk show radio personality Rush

Limbaugh experienced an autoimmune-related hearing loss. Actress

Kathleen lives with rheumatoid arthritis. These are celebrities

we have heard about, but collectively we don't realize that their

conditions are all autoimmune conditions.

And this:

Celebrity support for a charity is very important and raises the

profile hugely; I asked Dr Lahita if there was much celebrity support

for Lupus in the USA. I was surprised to learn that there was

reluctance there, as there is here, for celebrities who were sufferers

to come forward and talk about it. He suspected that it was because

life was all about image for celebrities and lupus didn’t fit in with

that image. The most famous sufferer is whose discoid

lupus was discovered when he was accidentally burnt whilst filming a

Pepsi ad. The Backstreet Boys (Howie Durough lost his sister to lupus)

remain staunch supporters as does Wayne Newton whose sister in law has

lupus.

Also this:

Tom Duffy's 9-year old son has spinal muscular atrophy. To raise money

for research on the disease, Duffy sat on a Scranton, Pa., billboard

for 24 hours. " Honk if you care! Fight spinal muscular atrophy now! " He

raised $28,000 for SMA research.

AIDS has Magic and as celebrity fund-raisers,

breast cancer has Ann Jillian and Rosie O'Donnell, paralysis has

Reeve, sickle cell has " T-Boz " Watkins, juvenile diabetes

has Tyler , multiple sclerosis has Montel , and

Parkinson's has J. Fox.

And of course, with $1.6 billion raised for muscular dystrophy, Jerry

is the champion celebrity fund-raiser of them all.

But Duffy's son's disease has no celebrity. Neither does lupus, which

strikes more people than AIDS, sickle cell anemia, muscular dystrophy,

multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis put together. [i don't think

this statistic is correct. In the US, SLE is estimated to affect

500,000 persons - MS at 350,000, HIV at 900,000, sickle cell anemia at

50,000, muscular dystrophy at 50,000-250,000 and cystic fibrosis at

30,000.]

On Sunday, December 17, 2006, at 09:13 PM, beanmommy2 wrote:

> For some odd reason I would find it comforting to know of a celebrity

> who has Lupus or something similar. Anyone know of any?

>