Rep Smith, fathers, meet with NIH researchers fighting for cure to deadly muscle disorder

Congressman Chris Smith hosted a meeting last week with top doctors and researchers from the National Institute of Health and two fathers from his New Jersey district who are fighting to saves their sons from a devastating disease.

James and  Karen Raffone of Manalapan and David and Maria Schultz of Hamilton are parents of sons with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Both families have dedicated their lives to finding a cure for their sons and the hundreds of thousands of boys who until recently faced certain paralysis in their teens and death in their early twenties.  The Schultz family founded Ryan’s Quest, the Raffones founded JAR of Hope.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

In world record pushup attempt, community rallies around boy with rare muscular disease

MANALAPAN — Jim Raffone and more than 600 others came up a notch short Sunday afternoon in their world-record attempt to have the most people performing pushups simultaneously. But that’s not what the day was really about, Raffone proclaimed. “The record was just one microcosm of our mission,” he shouted from the bleachers at the Manalapan… Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet