Slide 85:
We must make people realize that these children are not retarded. I am
thankful to be here tonight, thankful for the evolution of MAT, thankful for the
development of the NIDS Board. But, unless we all get together, the world out there is
going to take a long time coming around to say, ‘Hey, your children have potential;
they deserve medical intervention’.
To this day there are people who will take shots at me and ask how I can
give medicine to a child. I will dare say to you that 5 or 10 years from now there are
going to be a number of parents who are going to be very upset that they did not treat
their children’s brain. You have a bunch of non-medical personnel telling you that
this is not a medical problem. That’s not a fair statement anymore.
If the drug companies can be made aware of how many of your children are
out there, how they could potentially help, we can bring them into this. They are not
necessarily the enemies, but we have to bring them into this correctly. We need to set up
a program to accelerate trials while basic science evolves and not after. This is
something I want to try to explain because my wife said to me, believe it or not last
night, that it was the first time she understood what I meant. And let me explain this.
You’ve all heard me saying variations of this along the way, but
our world of research – I stand up here as a clinician. I went out in practice; I
didn’t elect to be in a research center. And, therefore, in the world of research
I’m a small fry. OK, thankfully I’ve been involved with good physicians and
researchers, and with the NeuroSPECT I’m not too worried anymore. But, I have a
choice in my life. I see your children. I bill for a visit. When you choose to go into
pediatrics, you don’t exactly choose to go into the rich end of medicine. But I can
focus my efforts, within reason, where I want to focus them.
