News:

8-1-2005
The Lucky and the Brave
Commentary by Jeff Olson at SpeedTV.com

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Sam Schmidt considers himself lucky. For those of us who can stand up and walk across the room, his gratitude is often difficult to comprehend.

But he’s right. He’s lucky because he has a caring family. He’s lucky to have his faith. He’s lucky because he has decent health insurance. He’s lucky because he has a degree and can earn money. He’s lucky because he has a race team and a cause to occupy his time.

He’s lucky because he can fight. Not everyone with a paralyzing spinal-cord injury can do that, so Sam Schmidt is doing it for them.

Schmidt has taken over the responsibilities of Christopher Reeve, who put a famous face on spinal-cord injuries and the search for a cure. When Reeve died last year, Schmidt became the celebrity spokesman for the cause. His organization, the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation (www.SamSchmidt.org), helps to create awareness and raise money used to find a cure.

Putting oneself on the leading edge of medical research in these times is beyond brave. In this political climate and with this group of politicians in charge, science is about as welcome as Carrie Nation on Bourbon Street. Suddenly, Schmidt’s opponents aren’t other racers or an injury. The opponents are radicals – and a small but virulent segment of the population – that somehow equate medical research with killing babies.

This explains the smile on Sam Schmidt’s face when he heard the news this morning. Sen. Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican who’s slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, announced that he would break with President George W. Bush on the issue of embryonic stem cell research. Frist, the senate majority leader who’s eying the presidency in 2008, is a former heart and lung transplant surgeon.

Now he’s saying the U.S. government should back the use of embryos – already discarded embryos – to extract stem cells for medical research, a move that holds immense promise for Schmidt, his foundation and hundreds of thousands of paralyzed Americans, not to mention victims of strokes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and other neurological afflictions. Finally, news that Schmidt wanted to hear.

“The main thing our organization is pushing for is to make sure that American doctors can do this type of research in this country with very strict guidelines to see if it will go anywhere,” Schmidt said. “We need the federal funding to do that. Our organization and Christopher Reeve’s and hundreds of other smaller foundations around the country will be lucky if we can provide $20 million worth of funding for medical research. With the federal government, we’re talking billions.”

Hope. That’s why, every morning, Schmidt undergoes a rigorous physical therapy session designed to keep his muscles strong and joints limber in case medical science makes the breakthrough. That’s why he makes repeated trips to Washington to lobby legislators. That’s why he speaks out about the issue at every turn, left or right.

That’s why he gets frustrated by the opposition, too. The phrase stem cell research has become synonymous – on the religious right, anyway – with killing babies. Of course, nothing could be further from reality. True, embryonic stem cells appear to be more promising for repairing spinal-cord injuries than other types of stem cells, but many other forms of the science exist.

At the top of the list is SCNT – somatic cell nuclear transfer, a discovery that allows doctors to imitate embryonic stem cells without fertilization. The breakthrough takes major steps toward solving the ethical issues. Except for one small detail. It’s also known as “therapeutic cloning.” If you want a reaction from the reactionaries, say the word cloning with a straight face.

The misunderstanding of this research would be comical if it weren’t so effective. The perception that science has somehow gone mad -- that abortions will be encouraged and humans will be cloned in the name of scientific advancement -- has prevented the money from flowing and the advancement from taking place. Instead of billions of federal dollars being applied to a profound medical breakthrough, we’re left with a haphazard series of state research grants while talented physicians and researchers flee to other countries. The latest developments in this field are emerging from South Korea. That fact alone should shame the right into lightening up.

Still, Schmidt continues to fight with the same verve as Reeve. Frist’s stunning breakaway offers promise, but it might not amount to much of anything against the current political climate. Schmidt, like Reeve, isn’t a political person. His mind is more analytical, more businesslike in its approach. The question that keeps coming back to him is a pragmatic one: Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to fix people and get them functioning than to pay for a lifetime of care?

“Anybody – political or non-political – who is sitting where I’m sitting or is close to someone who’s sitting where I’m sitting understands how this changes your perspective,” Schmidt says. “You see what the person has to go through and what the people around them have to go through. It is a life-altering situation. It doesn’t just have to be a spinal-cord injury. We’re talking MS, cerebral palsy, transverse myelitis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s. This is just the beginning of people that can be affected positively by stem cell research. It’s not just hundreds of thousands; it’s millions and millions of people. Just watching what these people and their families have to go through every day should be enough motivation for everyone to take a serious look at their political position.”

At last week’s IRL race in Milwaukee, Schmidt met one of his heroes. Legendary sprint-car driver Doug Wolfgang approached Schmidt and said, “You don’t know me….” Schmidt stopped him in mid-sentence. “Yes, I do.” Back in the day, Schmidt’s dad, Marvin Schmidt, built some of Wolfgang’s cars.

Years later, after recovering from a fire that nearly killed him, Wolfgang returned to racing, only to suffer spinal fractures that could have been as devastating as the injury Schmidt sustained in an IRL car in 2000. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and Wolfgang retired with his health. The two talked at length about racing, injuries and recovery. As Wolfgang walked away, Schmidt said quietly, “He’s one of the lucky ones.”

So, too, is Sam Schmidt. And if he has any say in it, thousands of people will soon be as lucky as both of them.