RICHARD M. COHEN CAN pinpoint the moment
he went from retired television news producer with
multiple sclerosis to advocate for the chronically ill.
It was in 2004, and he was giving a talk at his local
library about his bestselling memoir, Blindsided:
Lifting a Life Above Illness. Some 250 people—five
times more than expected—showed up, and soon
began swapping stories. “I thought, ‘Someone ought
to write a book telling other people’s stories.’” So he
did. Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, A
Chorus of Hope was quickly followed by a pioneering radio program on WABC in New York that deals
with chronic illnesses. Cohen, 60, discovered he had
MS—his father and grandmother had it, too—in
1973. For the next two decades he refused to let the
illness slow him down, covering wars and national
politics as a CBS producer, and marrying Meredith
Vieira, now cohost of NBC’s Today show, with whom
he has three children. But by 1996 his disabilities
were so severe he could no longer work in television. Today he devotes his time to being a voice for
the millions with an incurable disease. “Everybody
is touched by chronic illness,” he says. “It’s the
flood under the door.” —Joe Treen
GROOMER FOR RICHARD COHEN: MIN MIN MA/ WORKGROUP-LTD.COM; GROOMER FOR SUSAN LOVE: CAROLA GONZALEZ/
THE WALL GROUP. OPPOSI TE PAGE: GROOMER FOR DAVID E. HAYES-BAU TIS TA: CHERI KEATING/ THE WALL GROUP
Susan LOVE, M.D.
;
Cancer Crusader
SOMEDAY THERE WILL be a cure for breast cancer,
but someday isn’t good enough for Dr. Susan Love. In
late 2008 the cofounder of the National Breast Cancer
Coalition and the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation
( www.dslrf.org) launched what she hopes will be an
accelerated push to eradicate the disease that strikes
one in every eight women. “I can’t fathom letting this
disease go on for another generation. The time has come
to stop it,” says Love, 60, who in October launched the
Army of Women Initiative, a partnership with the Avon
Foundation to recruit one million healthy women of
every age and ethnicity to team up directly with breast
cancer researchers. It’s just the latest in a string of
ambitious projects for the general surgeon. Since
deciding to focus on women’s health issues more than
30 years ago, Love has racked up stunning achievements,
including developing a model for multidisciplinary
breast care at the Revlon/UCLA Breast Center and
writing the seminal book on breast cancer, Dr. Susan
Love’s Breast Book. Fortunately for millions of women
the world over, this breast cancer warrior vows not to
quit until there’s a cure. —Jeanne Dorin McDowell
