It’s always refreshing to start a new year with a clean slate, and a list of goals and objectives based off of a momentum from the last year. We are off to a phenomenal start in 2010, the Year of the Lung.
With a broad focus on lung health issues embraced by the leading international respiratory societies and patient advocacy organizations, the community has a tremendous opportunity to join together to generate more awareness on COPD and advocate for COPD on various legislative issues.
We had an overwhelming response from our COPD community to our challenge to communicate with all the state health departments to include the COPD question in their state’s BRFSS. Our Operation 435 program has recruited COPD advocates in every Congressional district that has resulted in direct communication supporting active involvement of the CDC for prevention and awareness.
We have almost reached our goal of a minimum of 100 COPDers in each Congressional district and encourage you to call 1-866-316-COPD (2673) to sign up as an advocate and
persuade your colleagues to do the same. We continue to build momentum in getting more of our community involved and welcome your enrollment in our COPD Research Registry,
the C.O.P.D. Information Line, Operation 435, and other activities highlighted in this issue.
As this issue of the Digest goes to print, we will be participating as a founding partner of a brand new campaign, DRIVE4COPD, launched on February 3rd in New York City with famous race car driver Danica Patrick and other celebrities with a personal connection to COPD. We are very excited about this opportunity to support the largest unbranded campaign ever undertaken to promote screening and early diagnosis of the undiagnosed 12 to 14 million Americans living with COPD.
The COPD Foundation has organized two scientific workshops that will ultimately accelerate the advancement of new therapies; our COPD Biomarkers workshop and our COPD Consensus on Qualified Image-Based Subtypes for COPD are profiled in this issue. As we continue to support activities like these, it becomes increasingly important to make certain that we prove to the research community that individuals with COPD are willing to participate in clinical research. That’s why your enrollment in our COPD Research Registry is more important than ever.
We’ll be covering special topics every month of this year through our e-newsletter, Facebook, Twitter pages and website. We’ll also be launching a blog, so make sure to sign up for the latest updates. Topics in this issue include the Year of the Lung launch, which we cover in this issues Feature story on page 16. We’re also covering research in the article on the scientific workshops on page 26, and pulmonary rehab awareness through an article on this topic’s best spokesperson: Grace Anne Dorney Koppel on page 22.
As we launch our social media campaign with this issue, we encourage each of you to become involved in the various activities and programs that the Foundation has organized. It is up to each of us to become involved and take a stand. Let’s make 2010 Year of the Lung the most successful year for COPD awareness, advocacy and research.

Best Regards,

John W. Walsh, President

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