Endgame for Epilepsy?
Researchers look toward a cure
On screen, a baby waves her arms and gurgles happily, then tenses, scrunches her eyes shut, and clutches her tiny fingers together. Her arm jerks to one side, stiffens, and finally relaxes. She cries. Then the shaking starts again.
“I just wanted to hold her,” says Susan Axelrod, her voice intense as she recalls the film shown at a recent conference on epilepsy. “I always held my daughter when she was having seizures.”
Axelrod raised a child with uncontrollable epilepsy and felt frustration with doctors who saw partial control of seizures and serious drug side effects as acceptable outcomes of their treatments. Her experience led her to found an organization called Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy in September 1998. The Chicago-based group enlisted Hillary Rodham Clinton’s help and focused congressional attention, and new funding, on research aimed at a cure for epilepsy.