The Williamsburg News from Brooklyn, New York • 7

THE WILIXAMSBURG NEWS, FRIDAY, JAN. 30. 1959 Is My Baby All Medical Research Offers Hope In Solving Birth Defects Problem KB, By Barney Ain I 'Editor's Note: This is the last of hree articles on birth defects, the eading childhood health problem, by Dr, Thomas M. Pavers, medical vice president of the National Foundation, noted pediatrician and dean of American virologists.) By THOMAS M. RIVERS, M.D.

Medical Vice President, The National Foundation Birth defects are the largest childhood medical problem in America today. Yet we know amazingly little about their causes. Tremendous strides have been made by medical science in the past two decades. Yet when it comes to ways ofpreventing these disorders that afflict over a quarter million infants a year before they are born, we are like early explorers embarking on vast uncharted seas. Not so many years ago we knew almost as little about polio.

In 1938, at a time when our cities were periodically scourged by polio epidemics, when thousands of children 1 Max Lodaw, former basketball scribe for the Brooklyn Eagle, has a story on "Abe Lincoln the Handball Player," in the current issue of Ace, the official handball publication The former poiice sergeant Henry Wittenberg of the Empire Boulevard precinct, has been named coach of the A.A.U. wrestling squad which next June competes in Russia as part of a cultural exchange program Mike (Fiatbush) Herman, who broad-jumped over the 24-foot mark in the first AAU indoor meet of tne season, is expected to improve his mark by another 12 inches before the outdoor season rolls around. The busy-bee Bernie Kirsner who succeeded Al Badain as the Erasmus Hall High School cage mentor, is also coaching a numberVof teams competing in various Yeshiva high scnool tourneys Reports from below the Mason-Dixon line, are that Harvey Salz, former Thomas Jefferson High School cavorter now going great guns with Frank McGuire's University of North Carolina cage team, will make every All-Star team in and around that bailiwick. sports to Leon Fiedier, assistant principal of the Sands Junior High School in the Brooklyn Navy Yard area and he will let you know that his son Ken, a member of last year's Wingate's H. S.

court team, is now one of tne mainstays of the Cortland State U. team. Leon, always an ardent booster of sports, was a member of the City College boxing team some twenty-five years ago. Harry Got kin has advanced to the No. 1 scouting berth for Frank McGuire's University of North Carolina cage aggregations Phil Rosenberg, county chief of staff of the Jewish War Veterans, has been named a Deputy Boxing Commissioner The student council of Erasmus Hall High School has given a gold medal to the 15-y ear-old chess wizard Bobby Fischer fo-date Hank Resnick has cracked every high school scoring record in his league Did you know that the Fiatbush YMCA is conducting ski classes for would-be ski stars? vere paralyzed almost before they had learned to walk, the National Foundation foi Infantile Paralysis was formed.

With March of Dimes money this pioneer voluntary health organization planned a great research program end financed talented scientists who to be harmless. Since then it has been found that they may cause meningitis and even paralysis. Coxsackie viruses, another recently discovered group of "cousins," may cause meningitis, mild paralysis, heart disease and even death. In the summer of 1957 over 400,000 persons in Milwaukee and the Twin Cities were stricken with one of this group, known as ECHO 9 virus. Two research projects now receiving March of Dimes support are examining the.

children of mothers attacked by ECHO 9 to determine if this virus has injurious effects upon unborn infants. Antibiotics are already used to protect the embryo from syphilis. Medical research may uncover more drugs and chemicals to control other causes of malformation. Rehabilitation Offers Hope There is still another area in which research offers hope for the future. Not long ago a disabled person was often doomed to a useless life in bed or wheel chair, barred from society's normal activities.

This deprivation no longer holds. In its efforts to salvage paralyzed polio patients, the National Foundation sponsored contributions to the techniques of rehabilitation now widely used in crippling due to many other causes. The search for still new rehabilitation methods will continue. One new project with great potentialities is the invention by National Foundation grantees of an "artificial muscle." Not yet perfected for mass production, this device may aid disabled persons to use their hands anci arms. For all such projects pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge, medical science needs more skilled manpower.

A great researcher, like a great poet, painter or writer, cannot be found at random. He combines imagination, determination, technique and knowledge. Nobody can endow a man with imagination or determination, but if he has them -we can teach him the requisite techniques and knowledge. To Train Disease Fighters This is what the professional education program of the National Foundation seeks to do. Its object is to provide more doctors, scientific investigators, medical social workers, physical and occupational therapists.

In recent years the National Foundation swelled their ranks by thousands. It is now expanding its program to help train still more battalions of disease fighters. Persons witJi birth defects will be among the many who will be helped. Besides birth defects, other areas of March of Dimes activity are polio, arthritis and virus Though basic research does not necessarily tell us how we can cure or prevent a disease, without it we are like people wandering about in a darkened house that needs repairs. Until we get light on the structure of the house, we cannot really remedy its flaws.

Every human being develops from a celL Hew this cell grows into a person is still one of the prime mysteries of all biology. But National Foundation scientists have already learned much about a substance called nucleic acid which exists at the core of all human cells. Indeed, it forms the core of all living things, including viruses. It is this substance which is the key to heredity and the development of the unborn child. "Pilot of life" Nucleic acid, a complex molecule, consists of two thin, spiral strands, intertwined like vines, upon which hang atoms like clusters of "berries." Somehow though we do not know exactly how this acid keeps the germ cell on its course, determining that it shall develop eyes, ears, nose, skeleton, internal organs and extremities.

That is why nucleic acid is often called "the automatic pilot of life." If the nucleic acid is defective, "he direction it gives to the growth of he cell is faulty. This kind of "misdirection" can then result in an infant with a minor defect such as nearsightedness or color blindness, or with a serious defect such as a clubfoot or an open spine. Or again, the nucleic acid in the human yerm may be normal to begin with, only to be damaged by some outside agent. radiation, for instance, may cut the nucleic acid strands or knock off some of the berry-like particles. Then the infant will be born malformed.

Avoid Strong Drugs Strong drugs and narcotics, laro dotes of alcohol, lack of oxygen (hypoxia) and certain types of virus infections may cause similar malformations in the growing embryo. The effect of virus infections upon the unborn child is a particularly fertile field for research. In the second article of this series I mentioned German measles, which can damage an infant if the mother is infected during the early stages of pregnancy. Scientists now suspect that other viruses may cause similar damage. These are the ho called "orphan" viruses, discovered by National Foundation virologists while they were studying polio virus.

Cousins to the polio viruses, the "orphan" group was so labelled because they could at first be identified with no known disease. Originally they were thought Dr. Rivers began probing at the root of this disease. In quick succession came a whole series of brilliant medical achievements: typing the various strains cf polio virus; growing viruses in cultures of nonnervous tissues, developing the Salk vaccine; testing it in field trials of history-making magnitude; and putting it into use with unprece-dented speed. Target: Birth Defects Polio is now declining sharply.

It may soon, we hope, become a thing of the past. With this victory in si.ht, the National Foundation now turns its accumulated experience and know-how to other health areas where the same kind of research, patient aid and training of professional disease fighters is sorely needed. Birth defects are now one of its major targets. Research in birth defects is closely allied to work already done by National Foundation scientists on the nature of the living cell. Before they could find a polio preventive, these scientists had to know how a cell grows and how it acts when invaded by a virus.

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