Sickle Cell Month

WHEREAS, sickle cell anemia is a crippling disease that affects the lives of many, having its most adverse effects on the African American residents of our state and nation; and

WHEREAS, sickle cell anemia must be brought to the forefront until a better method of treatment and a cure is found; and

WHEREAS, the month of February was designated State Sickle Cell Month in 1975, by the late Governor George C. Wallace in memory of Todd Phillip Thomas, a sickle cell anemia victim who died February 22, 1974; and

WHEREAS, soon after the death of Todd Phillip Thomas, his mother Sarah Ward Thomas of Salem, Alabama, founded the Southeast Alabama Sickle Cell Association in 1975 to provide education, screening, counseling, medical and financial referral to victims of sickle cell anemia; and

WHEREAS, the first state funds were appropriated to sickle cell through the Southeast Alabama Sickle Cell Association when Sarah Ward Thomas visited the State Capitol and her local state legislators in 1979, seeking funding; and

WHEREAS, Sarah Ward Thomas also founded in 1991 the Lee County/ East Alabama comprehensive Sickle Cell Education and Research Foundation, Inc., to place emphasis on research and hospital care; and

WHEREAS, the Lee County/ East Alabama Sickle Cell Center, a hospital-based program incorporated in 1992, works to provide consultation and medical care to all patients with symptomatic hemoglobinopathies and also provides emergency assistance, coordinates social services and serves as an information and referral center for individuals with these disorders; and

WHEREAS, the State of Alabama is pioneering efforts to combat sickle cell anemia and other hemoglobin variants:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert Bentley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby do proclaim the month of February 2011, as 

Sickle Cell Month

in the state of Alabama.

Given Under My Hand and the Great Seal of the Office of the Governor at the State Capitol in the City of Montgomery on the 8th day of February 2011.

     

Governor Robert Bentley