Teri Garr has been named the first national chair 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. "I think we inspire each other to fight even harder to make MS just another footnote in history."

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

The 55-year-old actress received the National MS Society's Shining Star Award in 2002, the second time the award had been given. The first recipient was actress Annette Funicello.

Multiple sclerosis is a nerve disease that causes varying degrees of symptoms including numbness, muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. There is no cure.