Reeve's advocacy raised hope for disabled

Until three years ago, Melanie Antworth paid little attention to actor Christopher Reeve's relentless campaign to advance the cause of spinal cord research. But when her 23-year-old son, Michael, was paralyzed in a motorcycle crash, she came to realize what a crucial role Mr. Reeve played in the lives of people who found themselves trapped in a wheelchair.

"Christopher Reeve made hope possible," said Ms. Antworth, who lives with her family near Woodstock, N.B.

"He made all of us feel that there was something ahead."

Mr. Reeve's death from heart failure during the weekend came as a shock to countless people, particularly those with an interest in discovering a cure for paralysis.

"He kept pushing for more," said Barbara Turnbull, who was left a quadriplegic when she was shot during a convenience-store holdup in 1983. Ms. Turnbull, now a journalist with The Toronto Star, says Mr. Reeve served as an unlikely agent of change, shaking up the world of spinal cord research.

"He raised everyone's expectations," she said.

"He made us all realize that we are consumers of research, and that we needed results. He pushed the agenda."

After a 1995 horse-riding accident that left him with no movement below the neck, Mr. Reeve played an often-controversial advocacy role, demanding that scientists throw caution to the wind in the hunt for a cure for spinal cord injuries.

Mr. Reeve, best known as the star of the series of Superman movies, once announced that he intended to walk by his 50th birthday - a pronouncement that threw down the gauntlet before scientists and researchers unaccustomed to deadlines.

Many in the medical community called Mr. Reeve unrealistic, but he countered that the world of medical research needed to take a new approach.

"Every scientist should remove 'impossible' from his lexicon," Mr. Reeve said last year in an interview with Jerome Groopman of The New Yorker magazine.

Although he missed his dramatic target of walking on his 50th birthday, Mr. Reeve did make remarkable strides in his personal recovery.

By last year, he was able to move some of his fingers, push off the side of a swimming pool with his legs, and breathe for hours at a time without a ventilator.

Mr. Reeve founded the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, raised millions for spinal cord research, and waged a relentless lobbying campaign to force scientists to concentrate on real-world solutions instead of abstract studies.

He demanded that scientists approach the problem of paralysis with a deadline in mind, and refused to finance researchers who failed to appreciate his urgency.

"I want things to happen quickly," he said. "I certainly want to benefit within my lifetime. Every day I wake up and worry about the timeline. I feel like a prisoner not knowing if he will make parole."

One of Mr. Reeve's pet projects was the use of human embryonic stem cells. He believed that stem cells held great potential for the regeneration of damaged spinal cord tissue, and lobbied relentlessly against politicians who wanted to ban the harvesting of stem cells. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, cited Mr. Reeve in his debate with President George W. Bush last week as he proclaimed his support for stem cell research.

Mr. Reeve also funded research into exercise therapies that sought to re-establish neural pathways lost to spinal cord injury.

Scientists funded by Mr. Reeve's foundation severed the spinal cords of lab animals, including rats and cats, and had limited success in restoring their mobility.

Mr. Reeve himself served as a human guinea pig for a number of controversial techniques. In the spring of 2003, doctors implanted an experimental device in his diaphragm that improved his speech and allowed him to breathe for extended periods without a respirator.

He also worked at "reawakening" his body's nervous system through extended sessions on treadmills and stationary bicycles, where his legs were driven through repetitive motions by machinery.

Mr. Reeve waged a long campaign against medical insurers, arguing that they fail to provide adequate benefits to clients who have been paralyzed. Mr. Reeve himself had few financial limits. His movie career had made him wealthy, and the benefits provided by his union's disability insurance came to more than $4-million. Mr. Reeve's wealth made him a frequent target of those who argued that he had unfairly raised the expectations of spinal cord patients who couldn't afford the resources he enjoyed.The harshest criticisms of Mr. Reeve came from those who felt he had brought false hope to people with spinal cord injuries. Those criticisms peaked after Mr. Reeve appeared in a TV commercial where computer-generated imagery was used to show him rising from his wheelchair and walking.

Mr. Reeve brushed those kinds of criticisms aside. He believed that publicity campaigns were crucial to raising the money needed to find a cure. One of his goals was to convince pharmaceutical firms that there was a profit to be made from spinal cord research. He often spoke about the money that could be made if the results-oriented approach of commercial research labs were brought to the problem.

"It is not charity. It is not philanthropy. It is a great public service, but it is also ethical free enterprise. That really should be the model for capitalism in the coming century."