Three Transplant Patients All Had the Same Disease

Artificial heart transplant recipients, the late Dr. Barney Clark, William Schroeder, and now, Murray Hayden have all suffered from idiopathic dilated (congestive) cardiomyopathy, a disease that progressively weakens and enlarges the heart.

In both Clark’s and Hayden’s cases it has been stated, “a viral infection was probably the cause” (Times, Feb. 18). A virus is also “probably the cause” of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy in thousands of other cases, especially among our young people.

Stanford Medical Center has said that 50% of their heart transplants have had this disease, most of whom are young, and the numbers are increasing!

Medical research has known for some time that the Coxsackie B viruses are the leading causes of viral heart disease, but due to lack of publicity in the media on this fact, indifference of the public, and to insufficient research funds for Coxsackie viral research, susceptible people will keep on contacting the virus, developing cardiomyopathy, and dying because we are more interested in the sensationalism of a few heart transplants, artificial and human, than in fighting this disease, as we did with polio. Cardiomyopathy, too, can be prevented!

FERN SCHIFF

Los Angeles