Wednes, Nov. 8, 1995

DAYTON, Ohio - Christopher Reeve wants to become a research subject for a
study on how to keep paralyzed people's muscles healthy.

Roger Glaser, director of Wright State University's Institute for
Rehabilitation Research and Medicine, planned to visit Reeve at a
rehabilitation center in West Orange, N.J., to discuss the study.

Reeve, 42, paralyzed from the shoulders down since falling from a horse in
May, has been trying out an experimental machine developed by Wright State
researchers that uses electricity to rhythmically contract his leg muscles.

The idea is to keep the muscles exercised to head off some secondary health
problems, such as pneumonia and other complications. People with respiratory
problems and paralysis are prone to pneumonia, but Kasteler said that did not
appear to be Reeve's problem.

She said he was able to breathe on his own for about 90 minutes this week
-- his longest period without a respirator since May when a horse-riding
accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Reeve is continuing his rehabilitation at his home in Pound Ridge.
He lives there with his wife, Dana, and his 3-year-old son, Will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And Who Disguised As...

A Column of Opinion by J.D. Rummel

A Job for A Real Superman

Like many of you, I watched Christopher Reeve being interviewed by Barbara
Walters. I'm sure that I am also not alone in my admiration. This guy was
handling things that would reduce most of us to jelly. Hell, admiring him
is easy. One of my secret terrors, one of the things that makes me close my
eyes and jerk away, is the dark night scenario of myself, stuck in a chair,
my body reduced to an unfeeling mass akin to cold beef on a hook,
effectively a sack containing a stranger's bones and blood with my head
glued to it. On the screen before me was a man, once far more active than
myself, who was brought down by a mundane accident. Once he lived my
fantasy by yanking off his glasses and leaping into the air to save the
world. Now he was living my darkest fear. I watched him, and the irony of
it was not lost on me. It was the kind of bullshit reverie that our English
teachers tell us is the stuff of Judith Krantz and Star Trek novels: How
ironic, once he portrayed the mighty Superman, now he needs a machine to
breathe

In traditional comic books we get off light. We don't really have to suffer
or mourn. We know Superman isn't really dead, it's just a marketing trick.
We know Batman isn't crippled forever, that some special sequence of events
will heal our champion, and return him to his four comic a month habit.
After all, no matter what strides comics have made toward realism, they are
still entertainment mechanisms designed for making cash.

But the man recreated before me in phosphor dots three nights ago was real,
the kind of real that causes that jerk away reaction. I jerk away because I
know that could be me, and I can't easily explain why it's not. That's not
to say I would be as gracious under pressure--I am a great panicking weasel
of Olympic proportions--rather, the similarity is that I could be involved
in a common accident and left so incapable. When he related the loss of his
respirator, when he shared the time he was alone in the dark waiting for
someone to restore his breath I felt something, something it took me some
time to codify. Ironically, in the way English teachers love, I had to go
to Funny Book Land to do so.

There is a vintage Bugs Bunny cartoon wherein the bunny is given super
powers. He dons a cape, a mild mannered secret identity and he uses his
powers to harass a rabbit hunter and his horse. At the story's climax he
loses his powers and is about to be trounced by the two characters whose
existence he has made miserable. Suddenly Bugs looks at the audience and
says, "this looks like a job for a REAL Superman." He steps into a phone
booth, and in keeping with the anti-Axis sentiments of the period, steps
out in full Marine dress blues, bringing about salutes from his opponents.
The obvious point being: Funny book stories are well and good in their
place, but there is a real world where serious things happen. Furthermore,
one should never rise above the other.

[Purely coincidentally, Neil Ottenstein reviews this very same cartoon in
his Not a Fleischer Cartoon column this month. See below! --Jeff]

That night, when watching Chris Reeve speak honestly about his loss, about
his hopes, seeing him rise above his fears--my fears--not grandly or
magically, or cinematically with swelling music, but slowly, with real
difficulty, one day at a time, I knew I was seeing something greater than a
triumph over a renegade scientist, far greater than the saving of the
world. This was the greatest deed he could ever perform. I felt: This looks
like a job for a REAL Superman

And he was doing it.

Away.

J.D. Rummel
October 1995
The Detroit News Home Page
=============================================================
Actor Reeve, Philanthropist Boost UCI Spinal Research Goal
By MARTIN MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Los Angeles Times Thursday January 11, 1996
Orange County Edition
Metro, Page 1

IRVINE--With the help of actor Christopher Reeve and Orange County
philanthropist Joan Irvine Smith, UC Irvine officials launched a
fund-raising campaign Wednesday to establish what would be one of the few
spinal cord research centers in the nation.

The Reeve-Irvine Research Center, which could open within two years,
would concentrate on developing treatments to repair and regenerate
neurological function in spinal cord patients.

"New discoveries would enhance the chances for recovery of function,"
said Reeve, famous for his role as Superman in a series of movies. He was
paralyzed seven months ago when he shattered two neck vertebrae after
being thrown from a horse in Virginia. "I view this research effort and
this program as a prototype for future research centers worldwide."

UC Irvine officials are seeking a $5-million endowment--expected to be
raised within two years--to fund the research center, which would be in
the school's College of Medicine. Toward that end, Smith, a longtime UC
Irvine benefactor, handed university officials a check for $250,000
Wednesday morning and promised another $750,000 if the school can raise
at least $2 million.

For Smith, the center would wed her interests in equestrian activities
and raising the profile of the College of Medicine, which already runs a
teaching facility at a spinal cord treatment center in Long Beach. She
approached UCI officials months ago with the idea for the center after
media coverage of Reeve's accident.

"The courage and perseverance Christopher and his wife, Dana, have
shown over the last several months are truly extraordinary," Smith said.
"I'm honored to do what I can to help him and the thousands of other
individuals suffering from spinal cord injuries."

To spur interest in the center, UC Irvine and Smith will award an
annual prize of $50,000 to the scientist who advances spinal cord
research the most in a single year. The first Christopher Reeve Research
Medal will be bestowed Sept. 15 at the Oaks Fall Classic, an annual
equestrian competition at Smith's San Juan Capistrano ranch.

"Yesterday, you played Superman," Smith told Reeve via telephone at a
news conference Wednesday. "Today, you are Superman."

UCI officials said that within 10 years the center would help bring
about a solution to the problem of correcting neurological disorders.

The key to reversing spinal cord injuries lies in discovering how to
regenerate nerve cells around the damaged cord, scientists say. Patients
who have suffered from spinal cord injuries for the shortest amount of
time stand the best chance of benefiting from the new regenerative
research. Scientists have scored minor successes with cell regeneration
in laboratory animals.

"Hopefully, we can translate that to humans," Dean Thomas Cesario, of
the UC Irvine College of Medicine, said.

In addition to regenerative research, the center would also study a
broad range of spinal cord injury prevention measures and treatments,
which would also help individuals with multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's
disease and other neurological disorders. If it meets its funding goal,
UC Irvine will then recruit leading scientists in spinal cord research to
the university.

"Experts are telling us we are on the verge of some great
breakthroughs," said Cesario, who will coordinate center efforts with a
national research group called the American Paralysis Assn. "But the only
way that will happen is if we can do the research."

Approximately 250,000 Americans have spinal cord injuries and another
12,000 are injured each year, according to the American Paralysis Assn.
Traffic accidents, violent crime and sports injuries are principally
responsible for most spinal cord trauma, whose health care costs reach
about $8.7 billion annually, officials added.

"This is really the right place for the center," Cesario said. "Orange
County sees its share of spinal cord injuries right here on our beaches."

Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1996.

MILLER, MARTIN, Actor Reeve, Philanthropist Boost UCI Spinal Research Goal;
Orange County Edition., Los Angeles Times, 01-11-1996, pp B-1.
===========================================================