AARDA recognizes AARDA founder and longtime staff as its latest Autoimmune Heroes

American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) announced today its latest Autoimmune Heroes - Founder and Executive Director Virginia Ladd, Director of Operations Jerry Ladd, Assistant Director Patricia Barber and InFocus Editor and Executive Assistant Eula Hoover.

AARDA recognizes these four individuals who are the driving force behind the organization's founding and tremendous growth and success in creating a national dialog around autoimmunity and autoimmune disease, advocating, facilitating and funding collaborative research and public awareness campaigns, and providing a support system for the 50 million Americans and their families who are impacted by the more than 100 autoimmune diseases, including:

 Virginia Ladd, the Founder and Executive Director of American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, for her vision to found an organization to bring a national focus to autoimmunity and autoimmune disease and collaboration to research, education, awareness and advocacy efforts.

 Jerry Ladd, Director of Operations of AARDA, for his attention to detail to the day-to-day running of AARDA, allowing others to focus on the organization's mission to eradicate autoimmune disease, the alleviation of suffering and the socio-economic impact of autoimmunity.

 Patricia Barber, Assistant Director, AARDA, for her more than 20 years of service to AARDA, lending her ear and providing compassion to untold numbers of autoimmune patients who were seeking a diagnosis, needing help navigating the health care system and working with them how to best present their symptoms to doctors.

 Eula Hoover, Editor, InFocus, and Executive Assistant, AARDA, for her unwavering dedication to AARDA from its very beginnings as a fledgling non-profit to the national organization that it is today, volunteering and working to do whatever needed to be done… answering phones, planning board meetings and proofreading educational materials, among others.

Part of its yearlong 25th anniversary celebration, AARDA's #AutoimmuneHeroes campaign recognizes the work of individuals and organizations that have advanced the autoimmune disease agenda in the areas of research, patient safety, advocacy, public education and awareness, service and volunteerism, among others.

"Their leadership and hard work has been directly responsible for AARDA'S success," said Stanley Finger, longtime AARDA board member and former chairman.

Each month during its anniversary year, AARDA will be announcing its #AutoimmuneHeroes. Over the last 25 years, these heroes - both individuals and organizations - have proved critical to helping AARDA become the national organization it is today, while positively impacting the lives of the 50 million Americans with AD and their families.

In addition, AARDA also launched this year its #25for25 fundraising campaign. It invites individuals and organizations the world over to recognize AARDA's achievements on behalf of people with autoimmune disease and support its work going forward by donating $25 to the organization (www.aarda.org).