Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Diane Rehm Show submission: Mo Udall and Parkinsons advocacy



Ms. Rehm is headlining an awards dinner at the National Press Club on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, which will also include Wolf Blitzer and Elanor Clift.    http://www.parkinsonsaction.org/. 
 I'm writing to ask that she please raise the bar and challenge the host organization to broaden its agenda beyond just research to include social/living issues, including especially threats to the safety net of Social Security and Medicare which continue to surface in discussions on eliminating entitlement programs.
As background, here is a link to my blog post WOULD MO UDALL ATTEND PAN’s 2011 MORRIS K. UDALL AWARDS DINNER? (Not Without Reservations).  http://marksrubin.blogspot.com/2011/09/would-mo-udall-attend-pans-2011-morris.html.  
Mo Udall turned in a phrase what took me more than a decade of living with Parkinsons and taking a national leadership role in providing pro bono resources for people with PD to distill:  “No place could call itself a city -- a center of civilization -- if it did not provide for the education of its young people and the care of its sick and elderly.”   I hope that Ms. Rehm carries the spirit of that message to the awards dinner next week, so that "care" becomes part of the Parkinsons community's advocacy agenda, not just "cure."




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