People with leprosy say the "L" word hurts!

They say words and labels are as painful as leprosy's scars sometimes

even more so.

"Please don't call us lepers," they say. The word carries too much ugliness. The word

has been used by misinformed people and portrays us as unlovable, untouchable, dirty,

dangerous, and even sinful. Leprosy is not a sin, and it should not be a lifetime

sentence.

Tell your friends, they say. Tell media, churches,

pastors, missionaries, historians, and everyone you

meet...tell them all, we are not lepers. We got a

disease from a germ.

Thankfully, the disease is curable. Thank them for

the many hurtful words they've retired from their

vocabularies:, retard, cripple, and worse. Ask them

to add leper to this awful list.

People get leprosy from a germ, mycobacterium

leprae. Today they can be cured. In many cases

people with leprosy will be cured with no visible

deformities. They can return to their work as farmers,

teachers, students, mothers, fathers, husbands,

wives and friends.

People ask us, "What should we call them, then?"

Think about what you call people who have had

chicken pox, pneumonia, shingles or emphysema.

They are "people with chicken pox," or "people with

emphysema."

That's what we are. Say our friends with leprosy. We

are people with leprosy. While in treatment, we are

leprosy patients.

You may have used this stigmatizing word in the past

(You were not unkind, just repeating the language

you learned as children).

Please help us end the "L” word and the pain it

inflicts.

. . . Leprosy is not an ancient disease; it is not a flesheating

disease that makes limbs drop off; it is not

highly infectious or a skin disease; it is not fatal or

incurable and it has NOT been eradicated. . .