Won't you take the time to click?

I received some news today that has prompted me to action.  Some of you may have heard about the Pepsi Challenge that is taking place.  Well, there is also the Pepsi Refresh Project.  They have several different (okay, thousands) ideas all trying to get votes for an award of $50,000 from Pepsi.

Here is the reason I am prompted to action.  An incredibly intelligent sweet little bass violin playing, Irish dancing, and singing 11-year old girl (the niece of some very dear family friends) was afflicted with strep and then diagnosed with PANDAS.  The disease is brought on by an autoimmune problem, and attacks the brain causing chemical imbalances which result in the sudden onset of OCD and/or tic disorders such as Tourette syndrome.  Because PANDAS has not been validated as a disease classification yet, medical insurance will not cover the costs of treatment.

The link at the top right of my blog page will take you to the Pepsi Refresh Project site where you can vote for the work of Dr. Cunningham from the University of Oklahoma - whose research will help to validate PANDAS and establish proper methods of treatment, which may one day lead to a cure.  Here is a link to the National Institute of Mental Health, PANDAS Information webpage if you would like to read further about this issue.

So many of you, my friends, spend hours a day surfing the web.  I am not asking for money, just about 30 seconds of your daily web surfing time to click over to the site, and vote for this project to receive some additional grant funding.  You may vote up to 10 times per day - all on the same project, or spread over up to 10 different projects.  You can log-in through facebook connect, or set-up a direct log-in with pepsi (and you don't even have to receive email from them when you register... I know - because that is how I have signed up to do my clicks every day).