My understanding is that Dr Latov, who started this organization, is very concerned that there has not been much funding for research on neuropathy. But that his concern is actually narrow--he's interested in research on IVIG. His work is all about IVIG, and I would suspect that the pharma donations to the Neuropathy Association are IVIG manufacturers.

I'm not convinced that the association was developed for any reason other than to raise money to support IVIG research, which, in turn, could lead to easier approval of the treatment by insurance carriers.

This is not a bad thing at all. I believe that IVIG should be more widely used than it is, if only as a trial for those with nothing else to turn to. But I don't think the Neuropathy Association can be expected to go beyond this.

The thing is, neuropathy is really not an illness. It's a simple description of one symptom. It's nerve death, and it's nerve death that could be due to a huge number of things. So raising money for neuropathy, as a general thing, is not going to happen on a large scale. Money for diabetic neuropathy, HIV neuropathy, autoimmune neuropathy, etc--that's where the money is. Idiopathic? I don't think there's a huge groundswell of interest in this. It's not a specific enough target for anyone to invest in.

Consider the Neuropathy Association a lobbying group. We need a lobby. But perhaps we need to know what to lobby for beyond IVIG research.