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  A while back, I posted my frustration with the multiple celiac awareness dates. This was in response to Congress designating September 13, 2007 National Celiac Awareness Day (see article below). I never posted a summary of the responses I got, but with the recent request on celiac awareness dates, I thought I’d better post this, since there's some good info on the dates.
   
  (http://www.swnebr.net/newspaper/cgi-bin/articles/articlearchiver.pl?161916 
  Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson and Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe today praised the unanimous passage of their resolution (S.Res.314) designating September 13, 2007 "National Celiac Disease Awareness Day". )
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  My original post:
  "Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but I feel a great confusion/frustration with the 'National Celiac Awareness' dates (United States). First we had October. Then they moved it to May, but many people still observe it in October, and now we have September 13th? Don't get me wrong, I love the fact the fight for awareness has created enough buzz that we even have this problem. But, as someone who works in the news biz--and would like to push our station to promoting awareness of this disease--there is no clear time to push it. There's probably not a solution to this problem, which as I said before, may be a good thing, but it's frustrating for me personally."
Angela Taylor
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  Responses:
  "You are not alone. What good is an 'awareness day' if even us celiacs aren't aware of it? Why does it move around? Is it something that is re-established annually and therefore changes dates? Do you think that there is a list of awareness days somewhere? Is every single day and 'awareness day' for something?"
   
  "Thank you! I have the same problem. I produced a public radio documentary about CD. I'd like to pitch it to stations annually. But this creates a huge problem."
   
  "Thank you for posting. You've stated my thoughts exactly when I read the notice. I know 4 or 5 years ago, Arizona recognized Celiac awareness day in Oct. Since I moved, I'm not sure what they do." 

  "I totally agree with your frustration. I'm on the other end of the biz (PR) and have a hard time sending out this news as I feel as though my credibility will be questioned when there are multiple dates. I will say that I think some of the confusion exists because there are different celiac organizations working independently of each other. I believe that CSA and NFCA are the two that have 'declared' a specific celiac awareness month and from what I gather, they do not work together on this. Thanks for putting your frustrations out there. You are not the only one who feels this way."
   
  "I must admit I hadn't clued into ANY of the months, but I do head up a breast cancer scholarship fund - and know that October's BCAM which could be why it changed? With more and more months being taken up for good causes, I totally agree that we celiacs ought to become consistent! I would also suggest that a day is probably easier to manage until we get the rest of the world to catch up in awareness. What do you and others think?"
   
  "Blame it on the politics of the various celiac groups in the US....CSA conferences are held in October & celiac has been their awareness month for over 2 decades. May was denoted celiac month only within the past 10 years, and seemed to have originated with the first organized walk in 2002 to raise funds for celiac research. Most the runs are scheduled for May. September 13 is easy...It's the birthdate of Samuel Gee. He provided the first 'modern' descriptions of celiac damage, even though it would take until after WWII to link gluten as the cause. All celiacs individuals & groups should agree on recognizing this date!
I compiled a timeline of advances in celiac last year." [Let me, Angela, know if you want a copy of this emailed to you.]

  "Yes, I'm with you on this--all the different awareness months and days are really a symptom of the power struggle that continues to go on between the different support groups in this country. It's very unfortunate that they can't, at the very least, coordinate and work on such efforts together. Even though there is now supposedly one large 'umbrella group' that is supposed to be doing this, it is clear to me that the groups are not coordinated in any way, and the message of each will continue to get watered down because if this. It's really an unfortunate situation."

       
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