The Chances of Jerry Lewis Seeing a Cure for Muscular Dystrophy in His Lifetime

2008's MDA Labor Day Telethon Had Updates that Sound Promising, Though It's Obvious New People Are Primed to Continue the Telethon in the Future If Need Be

It was obvious from the amazing response from those donating to the 43^rd Annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon this year that there's still a lot of adamancy in wanting a cure for Muscular Dystrophy and related diseases. It can't be said enough that Lewis' commitment to finding a cure within his lifetime and the formation of the MDA has helped get a forward push to possibly getting a cure within a reasonable period of time. But, of course, it always seems further from reach each year when some faithful viewers and contributors might argue they expected a cure for it by the first decade of the 21^st century.

Being a viewer myself of the telethon since an infant in the early 70's, a lot of people from Generation X probably thought back in the 1980's (when some of those early gene therapies were starting) that we'd see a cure for most muscular diseases by 2000. Well, that didn't happen, despite seeing some extraordinary advances in gene therapies that we've had a chance to see progress in the last ten years. This year, especially, some advancement in drug therapies for people suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy could hold some promise in the near future. Experimental myostatin drugs have already been tested in people suffering from all the different forms of muscular disease, despite the results being slow in coming.

Obviously, a lot of this probably makes Jerry Lewis wonder how much longer it'll be when it seems that researchers are so close to a breakthrough, yet still so far. Now 82, Lewis' health at least has improved (looking his old weight again on the telethon this year) and showing a relatively good amount of energy for someone his age. In a lot of ways, Lewis is one of those pop culture heroes who we always expect to be around forever, no matter how many health ailments he faces. It's a lot like it was with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940's who was around so long that the American populace expected it to stay that way until the unthinkable happened.