| **REMARKS OF HONORED GUESTS AT THE CONFERENCE**

Dr Blumenthal’s Introduction ofLinda Jenckes

Linda Jenckes is the Chair of the Board of the NationalCapital Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. With over 25 years ofexperience in health care, employee benefits, and tax legislation, Ms Jenckes is anationally recognized health care policy expert.

It is my pleasure to welcome Ms. Jenckes to our conference.I want to express my gratitude to her and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for itsco-sponsorship of this conference and for their leadership in raising our country’sawareness about this disabling disease.

Linda Jenckes

I was at the Department of Health and Human Services in theearly 1980s, and I can assure you that women’s health issues were nowhere on theradar screen. I want to thank the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Health Issues andTeva Marion Partners, who are dedicated to the management of multiple sclerosis, and ourother allies, who together, we feel, can search and find the cause and the cure ofhopefully all autoimmune diseases.

As some of you may know, my interest in MS began in 1969,when a family friend was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Today, unfortunately, I have 7friends with multiple sclerosis, 5 of whom are women, 2 of whom are men, which pretty muchreflects the national figures and research statistics. We think it’s probably closerto 73% of MS patients who are women.

When I came to Washington in 1973, a conference like thiswas virtually unheard of. So, as the old commercial says, "We’ve come a longway." We sure have. And it wouldn’t have happened without the dedication andinvolvement of all of you here today in this room.

On the MS front here locally, I feel I would be remiss if Ididn’t recognize a few people that had been most helpful to us in our efforts.You’ve heard the name Janet Waxman before. Janet and Sharon Archer serve on our boardof directors. Linda Daschle, Lois Breaux, Nancy Murkowski, Alma Rangel, Ann Simpson andCindy Stenholm have served as chairs of a number of our events.

This may be a first for us, having MS brought to the publicas a women’s issue. But from today forward, we look forward to working with all ofyou as partners to do the necessary research to find the cause and cure. I think we canachieve the agenda of *Healthy Women 2000* by working collectively together, andguess what—we’ll have a healthier and happier nation as well.

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