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Show PARADE JANUARY 1983 Clean Your Blood at Home Your kidneys clean your blood. remove the poisons that created when your body protein. They also the salts in your body fluids. Shut down the kidneys and. in a few days, you will sicken and die. Right now, more than 60,000 Americans with diseased kidneys are kept alive by artificial kidney machines that clean their blood three or four times a week. Most patients go to a hospital or a kidney center for these hemodialysis treatments. It costs the federal government about $25,000 a year for each patient. star Gary Coleman, the of TVs Dijfrent Strokes, uses a different procedure to remove the poisons. dialysis is called continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). It costs less than half as much as the method and is the preferred one for infants and small children. But extreme care is required to avoid infection. Dr. Alfred Katz of the University of California at Los Angeles says his study shows that CAPD leaves people healthier, happier and more active. But the machine method has not daunted Gary Pillersdorf, a busy New York lawyer and father of two. Like thousands of other kidney patients, Pillersdorf has opted to pass his blood through a filter at home. His wife, Diane, is the key. She sets up the dialysis machine and moni- artificial-kidney-machi- ne Good Intentions? That, as the saying goes, is what Hell is paved with... and an old Roman writer explained why: He means well' is useless unless he does well.' Unfortunately, in America one out of seven people still lives in poverty-desp- ite years of programs costing billions. Then what will help the disadvantaged millions? The essential ingredient. . . most authorities agree, is a healthy economy notes U.S. News & World Report. That would provide Jobs, d helping the poor lift themselves by their own bootstraps, while dollars tax to care for those who cannot work. more generating well-meani- social-welfa- re able-bodie- Nothing beats prosperity. The time Is always ripe to do right? wrote the Reu Martin Luther King Jr., and wed recommend this weekend of his birthday to think about how dreams can come true for all Americans. Consider that the poor shrank from 22 percent of the population in 1960 to 12 percent in 1970, though federal aid was limited and relatively cheap. But then, despite huge government programs, the proportion edged up to 13 percent by 1980. What made the big difference? Economic prosperity in the 60s... versus the stagnant economy and high inflation of the 70s. First time, Mac?" What went wrong? Although the plight of the poor is.. used as justification for . massive government programs? says George Mason University Economics Professor Walter E. Wiliams, most of the money goes to non-popeople, bureaucrats and professionals. . . .Take the now-dea- d Comprehensive Employment andTraining Act that many hoped would aid the jobless, especially black teenagers. CETA poured out as much as $9.4 billion a year-y- et, says Dr. Williams, the jobless rate for black youth in particular is still no less than a national scandal? Facing up to the pie. For TV star Gary Coleman, self-car- e means fewer trips to the dialysis center. He cleans his blood at Rome and does not require a machine. A small tubular device was surgically implanted in his belly. Coleman attaches a bag containing a special solution, which empties into his abdomen and washes the veins and arteries inside. Later, waste products in the blood drain out through the abdominal cavity and back into the bag. Then Coleman dumps the bag and solution, now carrying the toxins. His blood is clean. He does it by himself three or four times a day. Thank God for this therapy, Garys mother. Sue, says. He can take care of himself, he doesnt have to go into the dialysis center three times a week, and he can live a pretty normal life. This alternative to standard kidney PARADE MAGAZINE iANUAKY 16, 1983 PAGE tors it during the five-hotreatment. I can do it at my convenience, says Pillersdorf. I dont have to make an appointment as I would at a hospital . And Im safe from hepatitis, which many kidney patients get at the hospital setups. Right now. Medicare, which administers the $ 1 . 8 billion kidney machine program, wants to cut costs by getting more people to perform dialysis at home. But old people and children need the medical help. And many people do not have a willing spouse. In some ways, its a strain, says Diane. But in other ways, it has brought us closer together. Besides, waits, I have during the five-holearned to make jewelry. gg A declining economy ? President Reagan told the NAACPs 1981 convention, is a poisonous gas that claims its first victims in poor neighborhoods . Hence his plan to make the American economic pie bigger Instead ofJust cutting a smaller pie Into... smaller slices? Vernon E. Jordan Jr., then president of the National Urban League, sounded the same theme just weeks later: " When others were talking of an era of limits less Is more, and small is beautiful, we were saying bake a bigger pie! We want economic growth? The NAACP, too, sees the need to expedite economic growth? Thats the only way to fund vital pro- f grams for the aged, the disabled, and others who simply must have help-becamost everything government comes from spends taxing economic activity. Even back in the New Deal days. President Roosevelt hailed use private enterprise as the backbone of economic g In the US. It still Is. well-bein- Its a fact: Besides providing paychecks for tens of millions of workers, Americas businesses last year contributed over $3 billion to health and welfare, community, and other good causes. Mbir 9 Otmoobont. Box A. MoM Oil Corporation, 150 East 42 Street, New York, N Y. 10017 8 1963 MoW Corporation |