Liz Smith, journalist
and
literary advocate, with
luncheon co-chair
Janet Hershaft.
|
ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF
MEDICINE
Fighting Cancer Scourge
One Patient at a Time
By Tim Boxer
NINE-YEAR-OLD girl in Philadelphia had a rare form of melanoma.
Doctors wouldn’t treat her because they had no effective therapy.
They told her parents she wouldn’t last the year.
Her parents frantically
called doctors all around the country. Each one concurred that the
prognosis is right and there was no hope for the child.
The little girl’s uncle
in New York heard about the tumor vaccine program at Albert Einstein
College of Medicine. He called the director, Dr. Howard Kaufman.
Bonnie Englebardt,
luncheon
co-chair, and Congresswoman
Nita Lowey. |
The uncle persuaded him to
see the niece who was doomed to die in six months.
Kaufman took her into his
program. He saw the girl again three years later, last June, at her
bat mitzvah.
“There is hope and we are
fighting this, one patient at a time,” Kaufman said at a recent
luncheon of the Einstein College women’s division. “We have
developed 25 new vaccines which we are testing and hope to get into
the market soon.”
He said that 50 percent of
all cancers are curable, and promised to report at a future luncheon
that “we’ve taken care of the other 50 percent.”
Blythe Danner,
who’s always been timid, said her husband, Bruce Paltrow,
had radiation twice a day for cancer, was fed through a tube in his
stomach, and still managed to direct a film.
Carol Furman (from
left), Marie Brenner
and Blythe Danner. |
“After that
experience,” she said, “I’m not timid anymore.”
Danner shared honors with
author Marie Brenner, fashion designer Pamela Dennis,
primo columnist Liz Smith, philanthropist Peggy Tishman
and Rep. Nita Lowey at the Spirit of Achievement Luncheon
emceed by actor Tony Roberts at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Each had her own story.
Dennis, who was awed by her fellow awardees and felt like “a
pisherkeh” beside them, said her father succumbed to cancer six
years ago.
Brenner’s mother died of
the same thing 11 years ago. Lowey lost her mother to the scourge 20
years ago.
Alice Kent (from
left), national president;
luncheon co-chair Janet Hershaft, New
York chapter president Arlene Fisher,
and luncheon co-chair
Bonnie Englebardt.
|
The luncheon, under the
direction of Bonnie Englebardt, Janet Hershaft, Alice Kent
and Arlene Fischer, raised $250,000 to benefit Kaufman’s
cancer vaccine research.
|
The
Main Event
