Meeting Public Comments

Meredith Boesen

Since our daughters diagnosis in Fall 2019 I have had more families then I can count contact me for help. Their children have been diagnosed as well and they dont know where to go or what to do. We families are each others lifelines and we need help for our children how are suffering while we jump through hoops trying to prove they are truly ill. This disease took our happy, healthy, life loving 9 year old and made her suicidal, 40 pounds, and needing a feeding tube 24 hours a day for months as well as inpatient treatment for months. She needed health care providers and insurance companies to believe her when we said something was not right. We teach our children to say something when they see or know somethings wrong, but what happens when they are screaming help, and the adult turn their backs?

Brooke Walter

Please support SF165! I have a son with PANDAS/PANS. We have been battling this since 2008. We need to help all the children and families of Iowa!

Kara Heying

It is extremely important you support bill SF 165. As a mother and physician, I myself was shocked to learn my daughter had been suffering with PANDAS. Diagnosed at 15 years old, but symptoms beginning in 6th grade.Neurologic disorders are difficult to identify, but with better physician training, symptom screenings and current lab testing availability, this should be a condition we can swiftly flag, confirm and successfully treat. Understanding now that my daughters regression in cognitive processing, loss of joy and onset of obsessions were due to an infectious cause as opposed to late onset autism, rigid personality traits or anger has been life changing. This condition affects entire families, changes the trajectory of a childs future and destroys lives. This bill has the power to save more than one life, it will affect families and communities.I had begun to believe my daughters future did not include college, independence or happiness. Now her future is bright! Please help our children of Iowa. We need to produce happy, capable, productive tax paying members of society. Please support this bill.

Laci Minard

Please support SF165! My 9 year old PANS son has been through far more than any child should have to experience. He woke up by after a high fever right before his 7th birthday with sudden and severe OCD,suicidal thoughts, depression,and anxiety. It has been very traumatic for our whole family. Please support our kids as if they were your own.

Lucinda Rundell

I have several family members who have suffered from this disease. My young grandson has suffered the most and its heartbreaking to say the least and to feel helpless to help him is unbearable. Pleas support Bill SF165. You have ability to help so many, please do.

Christine Winter-Rundell

I'm both a mother, and a doctor, and two years ago those two worlds collided in dramatic fashion. My once inquisitive, funny, independent, sweet little boy descended into a dark world of intense anxiety, OCD, tics, aggression, selfharm, and declarations of no longer wanting to live in this world. It was heartbreaking. While he is doing much better now, he is not the boy he was before. His improvements have come at great financial (and emotional) cost to our family, as insurance covered very little of the testing and treatment required. PANS is a remitting and recurring type of condition, so I know that there will be bumps in the road ahead. Passing this legislation is the right step for these kids, and their families. There are so many across Iowa who are struggling to find ways to pay for the treatments that their children so desperately need, and that just isn't acceptable. Please, for the children of Iowa, and their families, support SF165!! Put the children first.