Most families have been affected in some way by disease — conditions like heart disease, diabetes and cancer are common throughout our state and nation, and treatments for them are effective and well established.

Less common, however, are the collection of some 6,000 rare diseases. Some, like Lou Gehrig’s disease, cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease, are more known to the public. But thousands and thousands more are known only to those who are affected by them and the health care professionals who go to work every day trying to find cures.

Individually, rare diseases affect a small fraction of the population, but together they impact more than 30 million lives. To put it another way — one out of 10 people will live with a rare disease.

Despite the relatively large number of people with a rare disease, many of these diseases have no known treatment or are incurable and, what’s more, they often go undiagnosed. Too many families affected by rare diseases struggle through the health care system, fighting with insurance companies, making costly trips to medical specialists, and enduring multiple tests — all in search of answers and hope.

That’s why we observe Rare Disease Day on the last day of February — to help raise the public’s awareness of rare diseases and to help bring attention, increase knowledge and highlight the incredible work that is being done by medical researchers and physicians to develop treatments and find cures. Much of that work is being done right here in Michigan.

The organizers of Rare Disease Day cite its growth — now observed in more than 100 countries — as an example of the progress that continues to be made in the fight against these diseases.

If you would like to find out more about Rare Disease Day and how you can participate, visit RareDiseaseDay.org. For more information on rare diseases, check out the National Institutes of Health Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center at rarediseases.info.nih.gov.