Special Report Talks to the Experts
Thursday, June 14, 2001
This partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume,June 13, 2001,
was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Click here to
order the complete transcript.
BRIT HUME, HOST: You see him on this show nearly every night. But
what you do not see is Mort Kondracke's tireless effort to increase
government funding for Parkinson's Disease research. Thirteen years
ago, his wife, Millie, was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a debilitating
disorder that affects movement, muscle control, and balance.
Millie has lost her independence. She can't even speak now and
communicates through a computer.
In his new book Saving Millie, Mort chronicles how he and his family
have coped since Parkinson's invaded their lives. Mort Kondracke joins
me now. Welcome.

MORT KONDRACKE, AUTHOR, SAVING MILLIE: Thank you.
Thank you.

HUME:  It is an astonishing book, a remarkable book.

KONDRACKE: Thanks. Thank you.

HUME: Very compelling read. The story tells me, but for the benefit of
those who haven't had a chance to read it, tell me about your decision to
step outside the normal role of a journalist on this issue of Parkinson's
Disease research and to press for a particular government action.

KONDRACKE: Well, initially, I sort of stupidly thought that the funding
of disease research was outside politics. And then somebody opened
my eyes to the fact that it wasn't, that it was just like politics of every
other kind, dog eat dog, and you fought for what you got.
And I discovered that Parkinson's research was deeply under-funded. It
got, at the time that I started working on this, about $26 per victim per
year.

HUME: Compared to...

KONDRACKE: Compared to AIDS, which was getting about $1,000 to
$1,200 per year. Cancer was split in those days. The cancer average was
$400 per victim per year. The breast cancer average was about $200. And
prostate cancer was less than that.

HUME: So where is it now?

KONDRACKE: Well, now the funding has about doubled for
Parkinson's, which is what has happened to NIH as a whole.
Originally, I started just working writing columns, helping people
who were lobbying, stuff like that, to try to boost it. And then I
decided the best way to help Parkinson's was to try to double
the whole NIH budget, and that Congress has been doing.
And so the Parkinson's funding has about doubled. So now it's about
$50. It is still deeply inadequate.

HUME: Tell me about the state of the research of the disease and also
about what promise it may hold for Millie and what shape she's in.

KONDRACKE: Well, sort of ever since Millie's had the disease, the
neurology community has been saying this is the most conquerable of
all neurological diseases. And what we discover in the process of
licking Parkinson's will help with Alzheimer's Disease and ALS and
spinal cord injuries and lots of other similar neurological diseases.
They're still saying five to 10 years. And there's fascinating stuff
going on, genetic research going on, something called neuro-
regenerative factors that work in mice. There's surgical techniques.
There's just an abundance of different research avenues, which NIH
now says if we can get $1 billion more over a five-year period, we
think we can do this thing. And the money still isn't there.

HUME: Now about Millie, all of us who know you know what a force
she was as a person, what a force she has been in your life...

KONDRACKE: And is. And still is.

HUME: ... and remains, and remains. Talk to me about that experience
with her, what you've gone through with that, and how it is with you
now.

KONDRACKE: Well, the old Millie, as I describe her, was a force of
nature that nobody could resist. I mean, she was a magnet. She
couldn't be defeated in any possible way. She was a great
psychotherapist. She was a wonderful mother and friend to loads
of people.

There was a party for her the other day in which person after person
came up and said everybody became a better person because of
Millie. And they still do.

When she got hit with this diagnosis, she was shattered because
she had been a social worker counseling families with Parkinson's
and Alzheimer's and strokes and stuff like that. And she knew what
a devastating disease this was. And she knew what her future might
become. And so she was shattered by it.

And at first, she thought — half of men who have wives who have
chronic illnesses say they're going to stick, and they don't. And I
said I was going to stick. And I meant it. And they all mean it.

HUME: But you have.

KONDRACKE: But I did. I did.
And it's partly — you know, people say to me sometimes, "You're a
saint." I'm not a saint. I don't have to be a saint with Millie, because
she is so lovable that it's really easy. And God helps. I've become a
much more religious person than I was before. And I've sort of
developed this philosophy of what I call Christian stoicism of you
play the hand you are dealt, but you ask God's help every single
day 50 times a day.

And that plus love makes it work. And it really isn't as hard as it looks.

HUME: Just briefly, we only have a little bit of time left. You were very
brutally honest about yourself in this book. What prompted that?

KONDRACKE: I just decided to tell everything the way it was and as
unvarnished as it could be. And The Economist of London gave me a
bad review because they didn't want to hear what Parkinson's could do,
and it's all there. Everything is there.

HUME: It's an extraordinary book. It's called Saving Millie. You will
find out things about Mort you never knew, and things about the
disease you never knew, and perhaps some things about yourself
you never knew.

Thank you, Mort. We have to take a break for the other headlines.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,27258,00.html

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