I was browsing through google images this evening in search of inspiration for t-shirt designs I will be designing for the Alopecia Aotearoa event in New Zealand when I came across something rather odd.

I'd typed 'Alopecia' just as a general search to see what I could find, and amongst the images I stumbled upon an ecard. At first I thought I hadn't read it correctly, so I carefully read it a second time. I was absolutely disgusted by what it said.

Ecards are usually witty and laughable—but this one made me feel angry and sick. Referring to Alopecia as 'ugly', and to "wish Alopecia upon someone so that they may be as ugly on the outside as they are on the inside" was utterly unacceptable and disgraceful.

What is the world coming to, for people to think it is okay to create something like this as a joke at our expense? None of us choose to have Alopecia, how dare the author of this ecard in thinking he had the right to do so. I see people on here struggling everyday with this disease, robbed of confidence, self worth and happiness. But I also see some of the most beautiful, supportive and humble people this earth has to offer on here too. I take personal offense to this ecard, and for every single person in the world suffering from Alopecia.

We are certainly not ugly, not anyway in the slightest. How dare they relate Alopecia with being ugly. I will be emailing the administrators of this site and expressing my anger—hopefully this will result in it being taken off their site.

Has anyone else seen anything else like this? We need to put a stop to this.