I'm only a man in a silly red sheet...

[rikibeth]

Dammit.

This wasn't the way the story was supposed to end.

He was Superman.

He was supposed to pull off a miracle and walk again.

And stem cell research would prosper and thrive because of his success.

Rest in peace, Christopher Reeve. You will be missed.

Comments

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Yes.
I was hoping we would see him walk again.
He held so much optimism for that goal.
Such a good man.

[kiztent.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it does underscore his message that lots of people will die unless we can do some basic research to get this fixed.

Not a good way to drive the message home though.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

word

[eirehound.livejournal.com]

Actually, what he died of is something that can't be helped by basic research. At least not much. He died of systemic infections from all the tubes in his body and from pressure sores common to the wheelchair-bound. If those had been prevented (and in the long run, they really couldn't), he could have lived for a long time.

[tikvah.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if the cure would have been found, then he would not have had to live with those tubes, in a wheelchair with the pressure sores, and would have survived longer.

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

Chris Reeves was attended to by a loving wife and family, and had the absolutely the best medical care that a movie star's money could buy ( in addition to any othe rmoney that he had invested. He was massages, had his limbs worked and his skin was contstantly watched. He still died a frightningly common disease of bacterial infection.
Part of this is stem cell research, to be sure. But this also comes down to the old fashioned ( tongue firmly in cheek) field of microbiology and virology, which has not been front and center lately. I would not be surpised if a superbug such as Staph, E.Coli, or Camptor was found in his blood work.

[kiztent.livejournal.com]

That was my point, yes Tikvah.

I'm not sure you realise what you're asking.

[eirehound.livejournal.com]

Restoring nervous function in spinal-cord-injured patients has been a prime concern of neuroscience since the days of the iron lung. It's parsecs away from being a neglected backwater. Medical researchers have devoted lives and careers to it, and the result has been that supporting tech has improved, but that's almost all.

Efforts to restore this function are running against two-thirds of a billion years of evolution, which has decreed that highly specialised CNS tissue in vertebrates cannot regenerate. We are trying to make nervous tissue do something that it is not supposed to be able to do, and that's one hell of a tall order. This is the kind of medical project that takes decades or generations to reach its goals, and generates scads of Nobel Prizes along the way. Success will require multiple breakthroughs, each well beyond the scale of Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA.

Expecting that the obstacles are going to be brushed aside because a rich and famous movie star is suffering is just ... it's just unreasonable. It's a tragic fact about medical research that the people who inspire it almost never live to see its fruition, and when they do, they're usually the first in line and get to be the guinea pigs and die of unforeseen problems (like the first artificial heart recipient or the first transplant recipients).

My heart goes out to Christopher Reeve not because he suffered his injury and survived bravely (though I admire that), but because he fell to infections that the best healthcare fame and fortune could buy should have been able to prevent and couldn't. My heart goes out even more to some ratbastard piece of white trash from, say, Terryville, who had a C3-C4 break in a motorcycle accident and has to fight like a wolverine for every drop of the grossly inadequate care and support that the government is willing to begrudge him.

Re: I'm not sure you realise what you're asking.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

I would agree, except for two things:

1. Reeve made astonishing progress, far beyond the prognosis he was given. The human body and the determined human spirit can do astonishing things. Who's to say he might not have eventually walked again?

2. Reeve used his status to bring the plight of the disabled into the public eye. He made a point of saying how much money his care and equipment cost, and advocated tireless (and spent his own money) to help disabled people who didn't have his advantages.

Re: I'm not sure you realise what you're asking.

[tikvah.livejournal.com]

I'm just stating that if there had a cure for spinal cord injury damage, Christopher Reeve would not have been trapped in his wheelchair to develop the sores that got infected, etc... And that would also make the same difference for the ratbastard, who wouldn't have to fight the fight that you're describing.

That's what I'm getting at. And given the things that Christopher Reeve did accomplish toward a return to sensation and mobility, well beyond what anyone ever expected he could do, who's to say how far off the cure would be if the money were in the research pot and the stem cells sufficiently available?

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

I know I'm probably aiming low, but I can't help thinking Christopher Reeve is just the latest victim of the anti-science, neocon mindset.

[eirehound.livejournal.com]

Other than a small cadre of neocons, most of the living population of the earth, and all of the future population of the earth, has been victimized by that. Mr. Reeve isn't special in this regard. :-\

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

Jesus, this is depressing. Pass me that wine glass.

[eirehound.livejournal.com]

< glug glug glug >

Right you are, luv. Enjoy. The world's going to hell, so, we might as well get pissed and watch. :-)