Fraternity-Testvériség, 1963 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1963-09-01 / 9. szám

2

FRATERNITY

for the digestive fluids to reach and absorb food properly. In addition, the excessive loss of salt from sweat glands can lead to heat exhaustion.

The Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute was founded less than three years ago by Dr. Wynne Sharpies, herself the mother of two CF children. Five years earlier, she had founded the National Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation, serving at its president for five years. Due to changes in Foundation policy, Dr. Sharpies resigned to form and head the Institute, which is dedicated solely to research and medical information on the disease.

The Institute is the only research organization with its own laboratories that is devoted specifically to cystic fibrosis, with a coordinated and basic approach to this widespread problem.

One of the basic premises of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute is that as much money as possible shall be spent directly on research. The Institute’s by-laws require that at least 85 per cent of contributions go to its Research Laboratories at Temple University Medical Center in Philadelphia.

“Financial support will not be wasted on side activities”, Dr. Sharpies said, adding that the cost of their medical education program is included in the 15 per cent retainable for expenses.

In an effort to discover what causes the abnormal mucus that clogs the lungs of CF patients, and to find ways to control it, doctors at the Institute’s Laboratories are studying the way this mucus is formed. They are also studying new methods of breaking it down. The Institute’s Research Director, Dr. Raymond Knauff, heads the research

programs which are expected to lead to better means of prolonging

the life of CF victims, and eventually to complete control of the disease.

“New ways are being found to help CF children stay alive”, Dr. Sharpies says. “Although the disease was once considered fatal in the first years of life, antibiotics, mist treatment for relief of lung obstruction, and pancreatic enzymes for digestion now allow about 20

per cent of the patients to reach adolescence and almost five per cent to reach adulthood.

Loss of the great majority of affected children, however, shows the desperate need for intensified research in cystic fibrosis.”

Detailed bulletins about new developments in the fight against this disease are available free of charge on request. Information can be obtained by writing to the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute, 928 Fidelity- Philadelphia Trust Building, Philadelphia 9, Pa.

“We hope”, says Dr. Sharpies, “that we will be able to raise the

necessary money to do our job, as it would be a tragic thing if research that might give us the answer to CF were held up due to lack of funds. We hope that everyone who wants this problem solved

will not only contribute personally to the Institute, but urge friends

and family to help provide the money to carry out this important research program.

These children and their families look to research as their only hope. Children should not have to lose their lives before they have really begun to live!”