Our commitment to you is to accelerate the development of treatments, diagnostics, and a cure for celiac disease. This promise remains true, even in the midst of the pandemic. It must. Soon—we hope—there will be treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19. We are continuing our work so that we will be able to say the same about celiac disease.
Why our urgency, even now?
Because the gluten-free diet alone simply does not work for many, if not most, in our patient community.
Dr. Dan Leffler, Celiac Disease Foundation Medical Advisory Board Member and clinician and researcher at Harvard Medical School and Takeda, spoke about the profound ineffectiveness and failure of the gluten-free diet as a treatment for celiac disease, at our National Patient Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC, in February. You can see view comments below.
Even more evidence of the failure of the gluten-free diet as a treatment for celiac disease: recently, a study was published confirming that patients adhering to a gluten-free diet in the real world (as opposed to a controlled environment) are still exposed, unknowingly, to gluten. For four weeks, multiple weekly fecal and urine samples were collected from 53 adult patients in Argentina who had been on a gluten-free diet for a median of 8 years. During the four-week period, 89% of the patients had evidence of exposure to gluten.
This is why we are here working for you.
Thank you for your continued support,
Marilyn G. Geller
Chief Executive
Marilyn’s Message April 2020