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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
CURE Keynote Address
Friday, March 11, 2005
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Thank you David for that warm introduction. David is not only one of the
most brilliant political minds in the business today, he is a loving
husband, a committed father, and a dear friend who I've been honored to have
by my side. Thank you David for everything you do.
I also want to thank Susan Axelrod and the entire leadership of CURE for
allowing me the honor of speaking here this evening. As many of you know,
Susan lives and breathes this organization, from the earliest hours of the
morning until late at night, every day of her life. And I have no doubt that
if the rest of us are willing to offer just a fraction of her level of
passion and commitment to this cause, one day we'll be gathered here to
finally celebrate a cure.
Since I first learned about this organization from David and Susan, I've
often thought about the simple act of hope that began its journey.
I've thought about three mothers, sitting around a kitchen table, sharing
the pain and the helplessness that go along with watching the child you
love, the child whose happiness you live for, struggle with a disease that
mom and dad can't fix. A disease that doesn't necessarily go away with the
doctor's medicine, that isn't talked about most nights on the news, that
isn't funded and recognized like a lot of the other diseases.
But then I also thought about how on that day, those three mothers said "no
more." Maybe it was the memory of the first time they saw a seizure take
their child to that lonely place where they could no longer reach them.
Maybe they thought about the 2.5 million Americans who suffer from epilepsy,
the tens of thousands who succumb to it, and the 181,000 more who will be
diagnosed this year.
Or maybe as they sat around that kitchen table, three friends living similar
experiences, they simply realized that there are some challenges in life you
can't take on by yourself. That there is power and strength in the ability
of a community to make a difference. And that as that community reaches out
and grows and finds its voice, so grows the hope that it will someday find a
cure.
Well, seven years, thirty research grants, one White House conference, and
over $3 million in donations later, I can see tonight that the kitchen table
has become a lot more crowded and that this community is on its way.
And yet despite all the progress, the question still weighing on your minds
is, "how do we get all the way there?" How do we get all the way there when,
despite the fact that epilepsy affects more Americans than Parkinson's,
multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and cerebral palsy combined, it
still receives far fewer federal research dollars than any of these
diseases? How do we get there when too many policy makers and too much of
the public still think that epilepsy is, as Brendan Malone told us in the
video, an "inconvenience," rather than a serious, and possibly deadly
disease?
I think that we get there the same way that so many of you got us here - by
continuing to share your stories and your children's stories with the faith
that more and more Americans will open their hearts to listen. With the
faith that if there's a little boy who can't sit through a class without
suffering the pain and uncomfortable stares that accompany a seizure, it
matters to every mother, even if it's not her son. That if there's a young
woman who can't work and can't take care of herself and can't have children
of her own because of the brain damage caused by epilepsy, it matters to
every father, even if it's not his daughter.
Personally, I can't begin to imagine what a parent who has a child with
epilepsy goes through on a daily basis. But I know what it's like to be a
parent. And as a father with a little girl who suffers from asthma, I can
understand the terror you feel when your child wakes you in the middle of
the night gasping for air. When you would rather stop breathing yourself if
it meant that she could start breathing just a little easier.
In this way, your stories touch me as both a father and a friend, and I will
leave here tonight having adopted your cause as my own, as so many have done
before me. I will go back to Washington and work with my colleague Rahm
Emanuel and others to demand more federal funding for epilepsy research.
But I also believe that if each of us walks out of here and tells the story
of the 2.5 million parents, brothers, sisters, daughters, and sons with
epilepsy, it will touch others who may not understand this disease, because
they are mothers and fathers and friends too. And as they embrace our cause,
we will expand this community of concern until there isn't any room left in
this country not to listen.
This has been the story of CURE ever since its founding - the inspiring idea
that those of you who have dedicated so much of yourselves to this cause are
doing so knowing full well that a cure may not arrive in time to heal your
loved ones. And yet, you continue fighting with the hope that you may spare
a nameless face the pain your families have known. That kind of compassion
is heroic, and it is the kind that will eventually defeat this disease.
We need this victory now more than ever because today, we face a new threat
in the potential spread of epilepsy to thousands more Americans. Just last
week, USA Today reported that hundreds of U.S. soldiers are returning from
Iraq with a condition known as traumatic brain injury, or TBI. Even though
new technology and better body armor are helping them survive bomb and
rocket attacks, the blasts are still causing these soldiers brain damage. As
of January, 437 cases have been diagnosed in Army hospitals alone, and some
doctors are saying that it could become the "signature wound of the Iraq
war."
As some of you may know, TBI is the greatest risk factor for developing
epilepsy. In fact, a study of Vietnam vets showed that 51 percent of those
who suffered TBI went on to develop the disease.
We have asked these brave men and women to leave their homes, leave their
families, and fight for our freedom on the other side of the world. And now
we are finding out that when they come home, they may develop a
life-threatening, debilitating disease that this country has not done nearly
enough to treat. We simply cannot tell our heroes that when it comes to
dealing with TBI or epilepsy, they're on their own. I know CURE won't, and I
will go back to Washington and make sure the federal government won't
either. I plan to work with my colleagues in Congress to provide the VA with
the funds to research TBI and epilepsy so we can learn more about the
disease and develop better tools to care for our heroes. These soldiers have
moms and dads waiting for them at home, they are a part of our community,
and we will speak for them.
I know that a lot of you have been struggling with epilepsy for a long time
now, and that you've seen both good days and bad. On the bad days, it may
seem like salvation will never come, that parents and children will be
suffering with this disease for decades to come.
But I think we find hope by remembering that we've been here before. That
there was a time when America watched helplessly as a mysterious disease
left thousands - especially children - disabled for life. And just as it
seemed that no one was paying attention and nothing could be done, a
community of compassion awoke and led a March of Dimes to find the cure for
polio.
Organized with the help of Franklin Roosevelt and backed by the federal
government, the March of Dimes galvanized a nation to conquer polio, dime by
dime. And while Roosevelt knew that his own polio would never be cured by
the discovery of a vaccine, he also knew that at its best, government can be
used a force to accomplish together what we cannot achieve on our own.
And so the people began to care and the dimes piled up and the funding
started to flow, and fifty years ago next month, Jonas Salk discovered the
polio vaccine.
I know that we don't have a President with epilepsy, or a major celebrity
spokesperson, but we do have a growing community that is on the march. We
have allies in government who know that we can defeat this disease if we
work together. And we have the hope that every parent has for their child.
The hope you have the first time you bring them to the doctor's office, and
you just want them to walk out with some medicine and a lollipop. The hope
you have the first day you watch them get on the bus, when you want them to
fit in with the rest of the kids and do well in school. The hope you have
the day of their first job, when you want them to call you and let you know
how great it went. The hope you have when they walk down the aisle, when you
want nothing more than for them to find love and happiness in life.
These are hopes we hold not only for our own children, but for every parent
and every child every where. And if we leave here tonight determined to turn
those hopes into action, into a sustained commitment to fight epilepsy
that's more than just about one fundraiser or one benefit, we will find a
cure and we will keep hope alive for millions of families for generations to
come. Thank you, and God Bless you.
Posted by Barack Obama at 12:08 AM
Obama"s Family
Barack, Michelle and their two daughters Malia, 8 and Sasha, 5
Obama's Best Seller The Audacity of Hope
Meet Barack
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack
Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up
herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the
British.
Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked
on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after
Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton's army. Her mother
went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on
the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved
west to Hawaii.
It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack's parents met. His
mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that
allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.
Barack's father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his
mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New
York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.
Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him,
Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to
Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based
group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued
with crime and high unemployment.
The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to
truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities,
it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws
and in our politics.
He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the
first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he
returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach
constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the
Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became
the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S.
Senate.
It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama's life - growing
up in different places with people who had differing ideas - that have
animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of
today's public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people
around a politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges
of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.
In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and
Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the
state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100
million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an
expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on
death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement
officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in
all capital cases.
In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a
globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no
longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed
with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by
allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of
their tax dollars are spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing
ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in
Congress.
As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to
help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while
working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who
will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat
posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican
Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed
to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat
we face to our economy and our security from America's addiction to oil,
he's working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and
politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of
alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.
Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the
role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the
issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his
accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his
family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5,
live on Chicago's South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of
Christ.

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