Colorado House Legislative Session
By Tom Strobel, Steering Committee Member, ME Action Colorado
We at ME Action Colorado are having a busy spring during the Colorado Legislative session. One venture has gone well and the second one appears to be running out of time and traction as the session closes. We are wiser and more experienced now, though, and may be more successful next year in hitting some version of the second one out of the ballpark.
The legislative success this year was getting a tribute to ME/CFS read in the Colorado Legislature by Rep. Alex Valdez declaring May 12 “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Awareness Day”. This tribute talked about some facts about ME and tied it to the Long COVID onslaught that is underway. The tribute begins about 23 minutes into the video. You may ask: how does this help? Well, it gets the words ME & CFS out to a little wider swath of the public, in this case policymakers (who may have never of the terms before) and connects it to Long COVID. Is this an immediate game changer? Unlikely, but getting the terms out helps and long voyages begin with a few steps.