Our Mission: PRAI is dedicated to changing children’s lives by empowering communities to fund cutting-edge neuroimmune research and advocating for quality care.
It's near impossible to not have been touched by mental illness today. I in 13 teenagers attempts suicide. 1 in 5 children suffer a severe mental impairment. We face growing concerns about the mind blowing increase in the rates of autism spectrum disorder. Parents lay awake at night wondering what might the next generation look like in the face of such alarming statistics?
Our food supply, our air quality, our entire environment is becoming more and more toxic. Pathogens are getting stronger, our immune systems are getting weaker, and our children are suffering the consequences of the world that we've made manifest.
Our medical system is more and more silo'ed. Psychiatry off on a special island all unto itself while the people with "real" sickness get medical care.
As world renowned neuroimmunologist Dr. Jonathan Kipnis has recently discovered; the brain is not immune privileged. The beautiful network that makes up the whole bodily system is all interconnected. Leaky gut, maternal immune activation and microbiome are no longer dirty words.
Many of us take our health for granted. We can't really put ourselves in someone else's shoes to consider what it must feel like to be crippled by a complex medical illness like PANS/PANDAS and similar neuroimmune disorders that physicians know little to nothing about and researchers have limited funding to investigate.
Most of us will never know the devastation and guilt that comes along with being a parent of a child suffering so profoundly and being unable to help.
And we certainly can't imagine being a kid crippled with OCD, extreme anxiety, fear, and depression; unable to laugh, play with friends and enjoy a carefree childhood the way that we once did.
Yet, 1 in 5 innocent children suffer so greatly they are unable to function. That's a huge number. How many of those mental illnesses are a result of the pathogens, allergens, or toxins in the environment that this generation inherited?
These children are very real and they need our help. They didn't choose to be born into a world like ours and ignored because the science isn't moving along quickly enough.
As we fight about politics and who's the new reality TV star, our children are slipping further and further away. They need our unrelenting commitment to find answers as to what happened to them and solutions as to how we're going to make them better.
We invite you to be a part of the movement to put our children FIRST. We're not offering a quick and easy fix, but a vehicle to advance the science by building a strong community of givers, basic and translational scientists, clinicians, volunteers, and families willing to collaborate, act, and think outside the box.
PRAI believes that we can cure pediatric neuroimmune disorders by gathering big data and biological samples, utilizing rock star scientists and passionate parents, and taking advantage of the most innovative technology available.
Now, please make a decision to help.