Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The Campion Fund is now ten years old! Over the past ten years we have carried to completion numerous programs and projects to support fundamental reproductive research and to create awareness of the importance of reproduction and we are very proud of our achievements. Your sustained support, both large and small has made our success. The Board of Directors is so very grateful and you are very much a part of our team. Thank you. The Campion Fund has given awards to junior scientists and presented their work on our website and in newsletters; we have held national meetings on basic research topics for scientists and published reviews of the proceedings in respectable journals and we have written blogs and educational material including educational videos to present scientific facts to the public. In the past we have focused on women’s reproductive diseases such as uterine fibroids and on male infertility. Our video series on Human Diversity was acknowledged for its online popularity by Venmo. We recently co-sponsored a scientific meeting with Francisco DeMayo, PhD, Chief, Reproductive and Developmental Biology Laboratory and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences on the important topic of the basic science of gestation and parturition. During this meeting research scientists from across the United States presented their current findings and provided an opportunity for the sharing of new concepts and for forging new collaborations.
There is so much more that we must do. We initiated an extensive online and social media program to acquaint both scientific audiences and the public on How Air Pollution Harms Reproduction with our three videos linked here. Partnering with Nabu Creative Studios of Milan, Italy an educational program was launched on Facebook and LinkedIn and has received a tremendous response. We received a small grant from the George S and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation in Utah to support this endeavor. To complete this educational program the Campion Fund will provide a presentation of the videos to teachers of a trendsetting preschool in Salt Lake City this fall. Plenty of time for questions and discussions will be provided at this learning event. We encourage you view this vides if you have not done so and to share these links with your friends.
In keeping with our 2023-2024 theme of the science of pregnancy and birth we have inaugurated an educational blog series on this topic to encompass all aspects of gestation from fertilization and implantation to organogenesis thought fetal development, physiology of pregnancy to parturition and the postpartum period.
We support fundamental research in the field of reproduction and that includes basic and clinical research as well as literature review to shed light on the many reproductive issues facing us today. One such issue is the serious high maternal mortality in the United States. Many newspapers have pointed out this sad fact and are highlighting the problem and thus our citizens are becoming aware of the high death of mothers during pregnancy, birth and in the postpartum period. In order to provide greater insight into this situation we wrote a series of blog in the past regarding maternal mortality and the fact that more black die that other racial groups, all the while pointing out that all women in the US die at higher rates than other developed countries. Now we are posting current and in-depth information garnered from professional journals of the facts leading to maternal mortality including the facts the lack of access to appropriate health care. However, it is not enough to only make individuals aware of this serious problem, which has multiple causes; solutions must be discussed and addressed. Thus, the Campion Fund is partnering with Frontier Nursing University in Versailles, Kentucky to hold a meeting of heath care professionals to discuss the scientific facts regarding the reasons for this scandalous high deathrate and the research that points to the multifactorial solutions. Frontier Nursing University is a distinguished school well known for its education of nurse-midwives, family nurse practitioners, and advanced practice nursing in the fields of women’s health and psychiatric mental health. At this meeting, we will discuss national statistics, the studies on the cost in dollars to our society regarding maternal death, the role of physicians, advanced practice nurses, certified nurse-midwives and certified midwives, community health workers and doula teams in tackling the problem and ways to develop these teams. Many research studies point to needed changes in our health care system to meet the challenges we face. Finally, as there must be a political will to succeed in eliminating our embarrassing high maternal death rate, we are planning to include a bipartisan group of national and state politicians with interest in maternal health, as speakers. This meeting will be held on September 19, 2024 at the Frontier Nursing University campus. The meeting will be a hybrid meeting- in person and on line to reach a critical number of individuals. We welcome your presence if you would like to attend. Contributions of $250 or more includes registration to this meeting, either virtual or in person.
Finally, we will continue to support junior investigators through our Campion Awards. In 2023 we made four awards. The awards are made to presenters at the annual meeting of the Triangle Consortium for Reproductive Biology which is a consortium of leading universities in North Carolina and Virginia. This area of our country has a large concentration of outstanding world renown reproductive science laboratories headed by pioneering scientist. For this reason, we choose to give the Campion Fund Awards to presentations made at this meeting. Last year the Triangle Consortium named the award officially, The Phyllis C. Leppert Award.
We have great plans and we cannot fail in our efforts to support fundamental research in reproduction and to work to increase public awareness of its importance. Nothing is more critical to educate the public to combat the misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about science, the scientific process, especially regarding reproductive science. We need your help to continue our vital mission. Please make a generous contribution now. You may send a check to us at The Campion Fund, 3897 S Highland Cove Lane, E-15, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84106 or your may donate by clicking here.
Sincerely yours,
Phyllis C. Leppert
Phyllis C. Leppert, MD, PhD, President, The Campion Fund
The Campion Fund
Contributions of $250 up to $500 includes a registration for one person to the Sept 19, 2024 meeting on Solutions to the US High Maternal Morality. A gift of $500 0r greater includes two registrations to this important meeting.