Garr named chairwoman of Women Against MS

Teri Garr has been named the first national chairwoman of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Women Against MS program.

Women Against MS is an educational and fund-raising program that has raised about $2 million in the past five years by holding charity luncheons.

"As a mother, a person with MS and an advocate for the MS cause, I have a strong empathy for the WAMS programs and the people I met at events where I have spoken," Garr said in a statement Thursday.

Garr, star of "Young Frankenstein," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Tootsie," revealed that she has multiple sclerosis in 2002, after nearly 20 years of dealing with the illness.