UK lawyer’s MS triumph
BRITISH multiple sclerosis sufferer Mark Lewis admits he does not generally believe in miracles, but after an astounding improvement in his condition from trial treatments at Hadassah hospital, he reflected: "Jerusalem is a good place for a miracle."
BRITISH multiple sclerosis sufferer Mark Lewis admits he does not generally believe in miracles, but after an astounding improvement in his condition from trial treatments at Hadassah hospital, he reflected: “Jerusalem is a good place for a miracle.”
The high-profile London media lawyer made headlines during the News Of The World phone hacking scandal, representing a client in the first civil case, and later representing the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in a successful case which led to the tabloid’s closure.
But Lewis is set to visit Australia for a very personal reason – to relate his experiences of a groundbreaking neurological treatment at Hadassah.
Visiting Sydney and Melbourne, Lewis will join Professor Dimitrious Karussis, director of Hadassah’s Multiple Sclerosis Centre, to support Hadassah’s STEM Neurological Diseases campaign, in which Hadassah Australia hopes to raise $US500,000 towards the $US1.5 million Karussis needs to publish his landmark findings.
Lewis, now 53, first felt symptoms in his 20s and, at 25, tests confirmed he had MS. “It was the year I became a solicitor, so all my professional life, I’ve had MS,” he told The AJN from London.
Deeply involved in UK Lawyers for Israel, he met his partner Mandy Blumenthal, a pro-Israel activist, at a demonstration.
While visiting Israel in 2016, Blumenthal introduced him to Hadassah’s MS clinical trials through a friend at the hospital, but what awaited him was a gruelling experience.
Over the course of a year, Lewis regularly flew from the UK to Israel to undergo 11 extractions of bone marrow. During two treatments four months apart, the stem cells extracted from his bone marrow were reinjected. The treatments “were the most painful thing I’ve ever done in my life” but ultimately worth it, he said.
“I found that within hours of treatment, I had noticeable improvements in speech and movement. I could move my hands and my limbs more freely,” he said. “I was as gleeful as a two-year-old child.”
Lewis also noticed a profound improvement in his outlook. “I always had a positive outlook but it was very frustrating when my body wanted to do things it couldn’t do.”
He was among 48 patients participating in the trials, which are “double blind”, with neither patients nor researchers knowing who is getting a placebo.
As a patient at Hadassah, he was impressed with “the diversity of the medical staff and of the patients … Jews, Christians, Muslims and atheists … No one asks a patient what God they follow, or if they follow any God”.
Mark Lewis and Dimitrious Karussis will speak at Hadassah Australia events in Melbourne on March 5 and in Sydney on March 8, both at 7.30pm. Contact shsilver@hadassah.org or phone 0414 941 413.
PETER KOHN
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