Pineapple fund--donation to OMF increased to $5 million!

[Countrygirl]

Just incredible!

I know nothing about these things................I just sign them .........but is it possible for us all to set up and sign an online 'thank you' card for Ms/Mr Pine? Do we have an address to send it to?

Edit: note to self....................read the post above before you engage brain cell.

 

[alex3619]

If this goes through OK then its more money than any government paid for research over most of the history of ME and CFS research. Its only in peak years that the US and UK governments have exceeded that, and for the UK that was PACE which is largely discredited.

I expect this will make a huge difference in driving research forward. I certainly hope so.

The PACE funding was probably spread out over several years so probably does not qualify in this example.

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

Are there any words for this?!!!!!

No, but this will have to suffice.

Domo Arigatou Gozaimashita

 

[justy]

Made my day.

 

[Cheesus]

@Janet Dafoe (Rose49) Does the OMF have a good idea of how they would like to use this money? Has the second phase of the Big Data Study been funded yet?

 

[Jesse2233]

Excellent news!

Would be great if this leads to a clinical trial for suramin, identification of Mark Davis’ antigen, validation and clinical application of the nano needle, completion of phase 2 of the severely ill big data study, and validation of the KIR locus genetic findings.

 

[Snickers]

This is AMAZING news!!!

@Ben H Do you know how the donation is handled at all as far as it being bitcoin? Are the bitcoins immediately transferred to cash upon receipt by OMF? I have no clue how all of that works. Was just wondering because bitcoin value has been crashing so I was concerned about the donation losing value. Definitely don't want OMF to lose any of these extremely valuable dollars since every dollar counts for us.

 

[bertiedog]

Fantastic News, well done everybody who has helped to make this happen and of course to the donors who are obviously wonderful people.

Pam

 

[markiz2001]

This is AMAZING news!!!

@Ben H Do you know how the donation is handled at all as far as it being bitcoin? Are the bitcoins immediately transferred to cash upon receipt by OMF? I have no clue how all of that works. Was just wondering because bitcoin value has been crashing so I was concerned about the donation losing value. Definitely don't want OMF to lose any of these extremely valuable dollars since every dollar counts for us.

They convert right away

 

[Sushi]

I hope the appreciation in this thread will be passed on to Pine.

@Ben H @Janet Dafoe (Rose49) @anyone else! If you have contact information for "Pine," could you send them a link to this thread? It is in a public section of the forum so they don't have to be a member to read it.

 

[Cam Newton]

Excellent news!

Would be great if this leads to a clinical trial for suramin, identification of Mark Davis’ antigen, validation and clinical application of the nano needle, completion of phase 2 of the severely ill big data study, and validation of the KIR locus genetic findings.

Mark Davis’ findings should be at the top of our list since they are closest to an actual cause of me/cfs. Although I am optimistic about suramin, it probably won’t work. The chances that any one drug, that hasn’t yet been tested, will work on me/cfs is very low.

Obviously Ron knows this, and I trust his prioitization.

 

[Comet]

Best news ever!

Huge thanks to Pine, @Ben H, @Silencio, @Cheesus, Marilyn from OMF, Linda, and everyone else who made this happen.

Wow!

 

[Ember]

LONDON (Reuters) - An anonymous benefactor has donated $5 million (3.53 million pounds) in bitcoin to the California-based Open Medicine Foundation, the non-profit research organisation said on Friday....

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...-million-to-medicine-foundation-idUSKBN1FM2G4

 

[Mary]

I just sent an e-mail thank you - could not figure out how to do Reddit! Pineapple Fund website says they probably won't respond to e-mails but they do read every one

 

[Stretched]

Wonderful, but why all the cryptic aura: anonymous benefactor, use of Bitcoin contingency with up and down in value (per above)?

Why not convert enough B to = $5M U.S.?

It’s kind of like receiving a gift in diamonds, today worth $5M. While we will gratefully take it, the value can swing depending on review of carats, color, cut, clarity, and
on the somewhat controlled supply relative to demand. In Bitcoins’ market there’s open market supply and demand, so $5M today may be $2M next week... .

 

[Cheesus]

@Stretched Most people in the bitcoin community value their anonymity. It is for a very good reason: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...r-forced-at-gunpoint-to-make-bitcoin-transfer

However, the payment processor that the OMF uses, BitPay, converts the bitcoin to USD at the time of the transaction. So however what equivalent value they send in bitcoin will reach the OMF in USD minus fees.

 

[Stretched]

@Stretched Most people in the bitcoin community value their anonymity. It is for a very good reason: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...r-forced-at-gunpoint-to-make-bitcoin-transfer

However, the payment processor that the OMF uses, BitPay, converts the bitcoin to USD at the time of the transaction. So however what equivalent value they send in bitcoin will reach the OMF in USD minus fees.

I’ll scratch my head and point North while I figure that one out=&

 

[Cheesus]

I’ll scratch my head and point North while I figure that one out=&

Would have helped if my last sentence was at all coherent. Let's try again:

So whatever the equivalent value in USD they send in bitcoin will reach the OMF as USD minus fees.

 

[Stretched]

Hey, not to look a gift horse in the mouth! I want my CFS to be cured, too;~)

 

[AdamS]

@Janet Dafoe (Rose49) Does the OMF have a good idea of how they would like to use this money?

I created a thread about this HERE after the first donation was made incase you missed it.

Since making the thread, I stumbled across a really important piece by Dr Klimas about the success with Gulf War Illness research/trials. She reckoned that it was a pretty innovative/aggressive template to follow and it had yielded 22 clinical trials for GWI at the time it was written.

One of the key points she makes is that sub-grouping is becoming increasingly important in ME/CFS when considering treatments. For example, gender and different mediators such as viral illness, autoimmunity or toxic exposure could all be important when considering more tailored treatment/drug repurposing.

I've made a very basic model below to illustrate what I mean:

It seems that getting the subgroups right first could be important. This is probably something that Ron and the team are focusing on anyway though.