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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | September 15, 2017 10:49 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Judith L. Schwank |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | PANDAS Awareness Day Oct 9 |
| I will shortly introduce a resolution recognizing PANDAS Awareness Day as October 9. PANDAS is an acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections. These include obsessive-compulsive and vocal and motor tics that appear suddenly and dramatically in children and are often accompanied with personality and behavioral changes such as mood changes, aggression and irritability, eating and sleep disorders and deteriorating motor and cognitive abilities. The science on PANDAS is still emerging, but in the last year New York and Illinois have both enacted changes to deal with it; Illinois now requires health insurance policies to cover treatment, while New York requires information about it to be included in its health outreach programs. For parents, a child developing PANDAS can be very disturbing because of a general lack of awareness among the public and even medical professionals. My resolution hopes to increase awareness and attention to encourage increased research and better understanding into the disorder and its cause(s) and treatment. I hope you will lend these families your support. |
Introduced as SR191