Epilepsy Action is a UK based charity providing information, advice and support for people with epilepsy.
The organisation was founded in 1950 as the British Epilepsy Association and adopted Epilepsy Action as its working name in 2002.
It provides freephone and email helplines and a wide range of information booklets. It has around 100 local support groups across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and a network of volunteers working in the community.
It also organises conferences for people with epilepsy and health professionals with an interest in the condition. It also has a website that includes information about epilepsy and runs an online community for people with the condition and their carers.
It undertakes and encourages non-laboratory research into epilepsy and the issues surrounding living with the condition.
The charity received international media coverage in 2007 when it claimed that 30 people with photosensitive epilepsy had seizures as a result of a segment of animated footage commissioned by the organising committee of the London 2012 Summer Olympics to promote its logo. In 2011, Epilepsy Action highlighted issues with the video for the Kanye West song 'All of the Lights'. Tests of the video showed that it failed the flashing images guidelines set down by UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom and so was likely to trigger a seizures in someone with photosensitive epilepsy. A warning was placed on Youtube for people watching the video on its website.
Its headquarters are in Yeadon, West Yorkshire.
Famous quotes containing the words epilepsy and/or action:
“We are compelled by the theory of God’s already achieved perfection to make Him a devil as well as a god, because of the existence of evil. The god of love, if omnipotent and omniscient, must be the god of cancer and epilepsy as well.... Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe that God has made many mistakes in His attempts to make a perfect being.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“There is not a Musselman alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)