Legislative Successes

Thanks to lupus e-Advocates, here are some of the LFA's legislative successes.

• Secured $4 million in FY2009 for the National Lupus Patient Registry (NLPR) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The LFA has advocated expanding the program to include additional sites in other parts of the U.S. to ensure the study includes all forms of lupus and all populations affected by lupus, particularly African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans who are disproportionately at-risk for lupus.
  
  
• Congress provided $1 million for a national health provider education program on lupus to be operated jointly by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, Office on Women’s Health, and the U.S. Surgeon General. The education program addresses a key goal for the LFA’s advocacy efforts to improve early diagnosis and treatment of lupus.
  
  
• The FY 2009 Department of Defense (DoD) bill appropriates $50 million for the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) and lupus is listed as one of only nineteen diseases eligible to apply for this research funding. To date, $7.1 million has been awarded for lupus research through the PRMRP.
  
  
• The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) was signed in to law July 2008. This bill is important to people with lupus because it clarifies off label drug usage, protects special classes of prescription drugs, and provides coverage of the benzodiazepines and barbiturates which are currently excluded under Medicare Part D, along with other beneficiary protections.