By Elizabeth Willoughby on
Country music star Clay Walker and his charity, the Band Against MS Foundation (BAMS), have just donated another $25,000 to multiple sclerosis (MS) research.
Last Fall, $25,000 went to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. This time BAMS has donated to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. The money will be put towards continued research into the cause of and cure for MS, a disease that interrupts the flow of information from the brain to the body, and causes symptoms from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis.
Walker, who was diagnosed with MS in ’96, created BAMS in an effort to provide information to the public and to fund research on the disease.
“MS is a neurological disease that strikes people in the prime of life and affects approximately 2 million people worldwide,” said Dr. Michel Levin of the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre. “We don’t know its cause, and treatment provides only partial relief. Although there is ongoing research about this disease, the cause has been elusive. By understanding more about it, we will come closer to inventing new therapies, and hopefully, discovering a cure. We are very grateful for the opportunity this gift affords us.”
Talk show host Montel Williams, who was diagnosed with MS in ‘99 and established the Montel Williams MS Foundation with a similar goal to Walker’s, has invited Clay to tape an episode with him this month dedicated to the topic of multiple sclerosis. His mantra is: “I have MS. MS doesn’t have me.”
“Being diagnosed with MS hasn’t been easy,” said Clay on the BAMS website. “[But] I have been blessed to still be able to do the things I love. I know not everyone who is diagnosed with MS is that lucky.”
Copyright © 2008 Look to the Stars
