0100,0100,0100{PRIVATE}An aticle that was on the NY Times web page discussing Janet
Reno's Parkinson's Disease.
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/reno-
parkinsons.htmlTimes New Roman
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o/day/news/washpol/reno-parkinsons.html/0/Right3/amocle04/amo1-rtsd.gif/6c65736672696564"}
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<left<
leftAugust 15, 1999
left
<
leftReno Discusses Her
Struggle with Parkinson's
left<
leftBy SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
left<
left{PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=W"}ASHINGTON -- As an advocate for people
with Parkinson's disease, Joan Samuelson has
pounded on many a Capitol Hill door trying to
increase financing for research into the incurable
disorder. In August 1996, she found herself with
a rare opportunity to make her pitch to a
member of the Clinton Cabinet: Attorney
General Janet Reno, a fellow Parkinson's
sufferer.
leftBut any illusion the advocate may have had
about enlisting the nation's highest law-
enforcement officer in her cause was quickly
dispelled. "She didn't feel she should make
Parkinson's a part of her public agenda," Ms.
Samuelson said.
leftToday, three years later, Ms. Reno has little
choice. The characteristic tremors of her hands
and arms have worsened in recent months,
making Parkinson's a part of her public persona,
if not her agenda. As if being caught in the
crossfire between Congressional Republicans
and a Democratic President was not stressful
enough, she must now contend with questions
about her health, and speculation that she will
resign before the end of President Clinton's
second term.
leftShe insists she will not. Her neurologist, Dr.
William J. Weiner of the University of Miami,
says her disease is still in the early stages; both
he and independent experts say there is no
reason at this point why Ms. Reno cannot work.
"There is nothing about Parkinson's that
precludes working," said Dr. Curtis Freed, a
well-known Parkinson's expert at the University
of Colorado. "It is strictly between the person
and their employer."
leftMs. Reno, the nation's first female Attorney
General, has held the job longer than any of her
predecessors this century. With her blunt words
and image as a Washington outsider, she is a
favorite with voters beyond the Beltway, and
she has long been admired by female lawyers as
a role model.
leftNow, at age 61, the woman who is sworn to
enforce the Americans With Disabilities Act has
herself become a symbol for the disabled,
particularly those with Parkinson's disease. The
degenerative neurological condition afflicts one
million Americans, many of whom remain "in the
closet," in Ms. Samuelson's words, because they
worry that they will lose their jobs, or that
people will think them incompetent.
leftThe actor Michael J. Fox kept his Parkinson's
diagnosis a secret for seven years before
disclosing it last year. Doctors and journalists
suspected for months that Pope John Paul II had
Parkinson's, but Vatican officials did not confirm
it until October 1996, partly because they feared
that his ability to lead the Roman Catholic
Church would be questioned.
leftMs. Reno, by contrast, announced her illness on
Nov. 16, 1995, at a press briefing televised on
C-Span, three weeks after she received the
diagnosis. At the time, the symptoms were
confined to the left side of her body; now both
sides are involved. Yet, as the disease has
progressed, the Attorney General has adopted
none of the usual tricks -- clutching a pen,
stuffing her hands in her pockets -- that others
may employ to minimize its visibility.
left"Janet handles this disease the way she handles
everything else: open, upfront, straightforward,"
said Donna E. Shalala, the Secretary of Health
and Human Services and one of Ms. Reno's
closest friends in the Clinton Administration.
"She hides nothing." Other patients and doctors
say she is shattering myths, not by talking about
the disease -- she rarely does -- but simply by
living with it.
left"There is a tremendous amount of prejudice
associated with having a neurologic disease;
people think if your hand shakes, you can't
think," said Dr.
leftWeiner, who has treated the Attorney General
for the past three years. "She didn't volunteer for
it, but she is doing a service to the Parkinson's
community to be out there working, to be out in
the open about it."
leftEarlier this week, while speaking to the
American Bar Association's House of Delegates
at the group's annual convention in Atlanta, Ms.
Reno's body gave her little relief. She spoke in
the slow, deliberate cadence that is her
trademark. But her hands spoke at their own
pace. Her left arm bobbed up and down during
the 20-minute address, while the fingers on her
right hand fiddled with the air.
left"I think she is very brave," said G. Robert
Witmer Jr., a lawyer from Rochester.
left"I think it actually enhances the delivery of her
message to see someone who is coping with a
physical disability and not letting it deter her
from her job."
leftThe details of how Ms. Reno copes remain
largely a private matter. Although she permitted
her doctor to be interviewed, she has repeatedly
declined to discuss her illness in detail, telling
reporters with questions to show up at her
weekly briefing and ask them. On June 18, one
did. "It doesn't bother me," she said then. "And
if you all will just get used to it, it won't bother
you."
leftDr. Weiner said that while Ms. Reno's tremors
have indeed grown worse, the more troubling
symptom is one the public does not see, the
occasional stiffness she experiences while
walking. Even so, the doctor said, when he last
examined the Attorney General on July 19, "she
was doing well."
left"She was quite enthusiastic," Dr. Weiner said.
"She had been mountain climbing in California
and swimming in the ocean here in Florida. She
felt she had done well at that, and she was quite
proud of herself."
leftThis has been Ms. Reno's image throughout her
tenure in Washington: the active, energetic
nature lover, and friends and aides say she
seems determined not to let illness get in the
way. She took her staff out kayaking on the
Potomac a couple of weeks ago, and she still
sticks to what Deputy Attorney General Eric
Holder described as a "punishing" schedule,
making day trips to cities like Chicago and
Cleveland that begin at 5 o'clock in the morning
so she can return to work in Washington later
the same afternoon.
leftParkinson's disease impairs its victims by killing
the brain cells that produce dopamine, a
neurochemical that controls motor function. The
primary symptoms, at the outset, are stiffness
and tremors, but patients eventually lose all
motor control.
leftThe disease progresses at different rates in
different people, and there is no way to predict
how quickly Ms. Reno's condition will
deteriorate. About one-quarter to one-third of
all patients have cognitive impairment, but Dr.
Weiner says there is no evidence of this in Ms.
Reno.
leftNeurologists assess Parkinson's patients
according to five stages. Ms. Reno is in the
second stage, Dr. Weiner said, which means she
has stiffness and tremors on both sides of her
body but is not yet losing her balance or having
trouble with other daily activities. Last year,
while attending a service at a Maryland church,
Ms. Reno fainted, but Dr. Weiner said the
episode was unrelated to her disease.
leftThere are a handful of drugs for Parkinson's, but
they treat only the symptoms and there is
considerable debate among doctors about how
much medication patients should take, and what
kind. Ms. Reno takes a relatively small amount:
two milligrams per day of pramipexole, a drug
that mimics the action of dopamine in the brain.
It is not enough to control her symptoms
completely, but Dr. Weiner said complete
control was not necessary, so long as the patient
was comfortable and could function.
left"Who are we treating?" he asked. "The patient,
or the people who have to look at the patient?"
leftEventually, the Parkinson's drugs stop working,
which is one reason advocates like Ms.
Samuelson are so eager for better treatments, if
not a cure.
leftIn an interview earlier this year, Ms. Samuelson
spoke eloquently of her own frightening future: "I
have watched fellow advocates and friends,
people I loved, die the living death which is end-
stage Parkinson's, where you are a prisoner of
your body, unable to participate in the world,
unable to move, unable to speak, unable to
swallow."
leftThose close to Ms. Reno say she has read up
on the disease and understands the prognosis.
But if she has any anxiety, or moments of
sadness or self-pity, they say, she does not
reveal them. "She has just gone on," said her
younger sister, Maggy Hurchalla. "I think the
most striking thing she has done is not worry
about people worrying about
her."<left
left
left
left
left
Arial{PRIVATE}Times New Roman
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<
An article on the NY Times Web Page:
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/reno-parkinsons.html
<