MDA is ready to turn the corner.

• Author: Weinberg, Gerald C.
• Position: Life in America - Muscular Dystrophy Association

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SIXTY YEARS AGO, the term "muscular dystrophy," even though it designates a group of devastating diseases, was meaningless to most people. Today, it almost is a household word thanks to a dedicated group of people--led by a deeply committed show business star--determined to make a difference.

In 1949, Ade Milhorat at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center was one of only a handful of physicians in the world working in research involving the muscular dystrophies, each of which in some way causes muscles to degenerate, resulting in loss of function and often death. Milhorat had received a grant from the Armour family of meat packing fame because their child was affected by a form of the disease. They were hoping for what truly would have been a miraculous cure. When the child died, Milhorat's funding was terminated, and it might well have been the end of his research efforts were it not for a friend of his who also had muscular dystrophy.

Paul Cohen was a successful New York businessman and organizer extraordinaire. With some others affected by muscular dystrophy, either having it themselves or having affected children, he formed the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 1950. To help Milhorat continue his research, the organization held its first fundraiser that year. It raffled off a Pontiac and raised $19,000, certainly a far cry from the $200,000,000-plus MDA annual budget of today. Both fundraising expertise and the knowledge needed to find treatments and cures have accumulated steadily over the last five decades.

MDA committed from its inception to defeat all the muscular dystrophies and other neuromuscular diseases, including myositis; Friedreich's ataxia amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and other spinal muscular atrophies; and myasthenia gravis. It developed a wide spectrum of money-raising activities to do the job. Among the first was what we referred to as the "march," named primarily for the fact that it involved feet--lots of them, in action. MDA staff" and volunteers went door-to-door seeking donations. Then, in 1952, the National Association of Letter Carriers joined in. After a Sunday night appeal on his TV show by Jerry Lewis, these mailmen, following their normal delivery rounds, went back out. Homeowners were asked to leave their porch lights on if they wanted to donate. It was a labor-intensive operation but, in the heyday of the march, it produced a record $3,000,000 in one year.

Meanwhile...