Foundation history
In the early 1990s, before the GFPD was founded, families were just beginning to use the Internet to connect, discovering that other families like theirs were out there. John Harris, moderated a website and an email list-serve for families whose children’s symptoms were mostly at the moderate or mild end of the disease spectrum, while Pam Freeth connected parents of children with the most severe presentation of this disease through the Zellweger Baby Support Network.
In 2010, parents Shannon Butalla and Melissa Bryce Gamble joined to co-found the Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders, bringing together families and patients impacted by peroxisome disorders, including Peroxisome Biogenesis Disorder-Zellweger Spectrum Disorder (PBD-ZSD) and the related single enzyme peroxisomal disorders.
