murrayyou said it all ,had pd still have it only help isusing pathways
normaly not in use from brain to muscletryit----- Original Message -----
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From: Murray Charters <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 10:10 PM
Subject: ARTICLE: Embryos Of Hope


> The Washington Post
> Embryos Of Hope
> By Richard Cohen
> Thursday, June 28, 2001; Page A33
>
> If George W. Bush reads just one book this summer, I hope it is
> "Saving Milly." This is Morton Kondracke's account of his wife's
> battle with Parkinson's disease and his own transformation from
> a self-described careerist with more drive than talent to a mensch
> who has achieved greatness in this one book alone. I finished it
> last night in tears.
>
> I suppose I should put my cards on the table. I have known Mort
> since even before he was a regular on "The McLaughlin Group."
> I know Milly, too. I know the publisher of this book best of all.
> He sent me an early version months ago. I did not read it. I did not
> want to read it. I did not want to read about Milly disintegrating.
> My friend persisted. Read it, he said -- and sent another book.
> Finally, for reasons of my own, I did.
>
> Those reasons have to do with stem cell research. Stem cells are
> derived from embryos that are five days old. These cells have
> a special quality. They can develop into almost any cell in the
> human body and, theoretically, can be used to repair any tissue
> or organ -- heart, nerves, you name it. To use the cells, though,
> requires killing the embryo.
>
> To some people, the embryo is life. Simple. You had conception
> and you got life. This is the view held by President Bush, not to
> mention many -- but not all -- abortion opponents. The president
> has repeated it many times, and he has said nothing recently
> to suggest he has changed his mind. In the meantime,
> his administration is going through the motions of studying
> whether the federal government should fund stem cell research.
> Much of the scientific community says it should.
>
> Make no mistake about it, this is not the easiest of decisions.
> It is complicated ethically and medically since, among other things,
> stem cells can also be derived from adult tissue. Great claims have
> been made for these adult cells, but the preponderance of medical
> opinion is that the embryonic cells offer the best hope for curing
> diseases. One of those diseases is Parkinson's.
>
> So I read Mort's book. I read about Milly's unstoppable decline --
> how at first she had trouble signing her name, then walking, then
> talking, eating, turning over in bed, standing, drinking, controlling
> her bowels. I read, in both shock and wonder, of Mort washing her,
> changing her, feeding her, clearing food out of her clogged throat
> and, through it all, loving her -- completely, physically. I read an
> account of a love so huge that I shrank before it:
> Could I do the same?
>
> It has been years since I've seen Milly. It has been years since
> she cornered me in the kitchen of her house and told me off for
> ignoring her. Mort writes about that in his book. I had forgotten
> the incident, but not her energy, her intelligence, the way she
> was on my case for a long time afterward -- and her eyes.
> The former Millicent Martinez is a magnificent mongrel -- half
> Mexican (her father), half Jewish (her mother) and totally
> communist (both parents). I was messing with the genuine article.
>
> Like a virus, this exotic woman punctured the conventional
> Kondracke's Brooks Brothers membrane, insinuating herself
> into his life. She turned order into mayhem, their home into a dorm
> and challenged his reflexive respect for authority. It was the
> government, after all, that deported her father for his radical politics.
> She saw him off at the train station and within days he was dead
> of a heart attack. Milly was 10.
>
> There'll be no happy ending here. There's no optimistic, chipper
> hero here. Milly is depressed. She wants to die. She also wants
> to live. Sometimes Mort is in a rage. They have discussed suicide,
> assisted suicide, the method and circumstances of her death.
> On a given page, this book is almost unbearably candid. Mort
> even admits that he thinks sometimes of other women and of life
> after Milly. But Mort loves Milly and, if you read his book,
> so will you.
>
> This is why I want Bush to read the book. It will get him close
> to someone with Parkinson's. Maybe he'll come to love Milly,
> not as Mort does, of course, but in the way I did while reading
> Mort's book. So when the president decides about stem cell
> research and what, after all, the term pro-life has to mean, it will
> not just be from briefing books or the cold counsel of aides
> worrying about the antiabortion vote, but from what Mort has
> written about Milly -- her face, its expression frozen, looking out
> from the pages of this extraordinary work. No research can save
> her. No reader can forget her.
>
> © 2001 The Washington Post Company
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55053-2001Jun27.html
>
> * * *
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