Restroom Access Bill in Washington and Research for the CCFA
April 26, 2009I’ve found some encouraging happenings in the IBD community while perusing news sites recently. Read below.
With the help of star Crohn’s disease sufferer Mike McCready, lead guitarist for the band Pearl Jam, the Washington state legislature has passed an emergency restroom access bill. The bill would allow sufferers of Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and other bowel conditions to use a business’s private restrooms if no public restrooms are available. The bill passed overwhelmingly 93-0, and now sits on the governor’s desk. To use a business’s private restrooms, an IBD sufferer would have to present a special identification card or written permission from a doctor. Hopefully this law helps save sufferers the embarrassment of losing control of their bowels in public. And hopefully the act of showing this identification card and explaining one’s situation to a business owner doesn’t take too much time. We sufferers sometimes have only seconds to make it to a bathroom.
The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America has just received a $5.6 million grant for research from the The Leona M. & Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The money will support research for the next three years. The CCFA is the leader in IBD research.
Comments on either of these stories? Does anybody live in Washington who can take advantage of this law once it’s enacted?
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
[...] of the guitarists in this video is Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, who also suffers with inflammatory bowel [...]