Notes and emendations (August 31, 1999) by Webmaster Curtis L. Atkin are [bracketed].
Members of the Hereditary Nephritis Foundation may be interested to learn of the formation and growth of a Utah affiliate of the National Kidney Foundation. In almost all states except Utah, the National Kidney Foundation has been established for some time. Three years ago, under the enthusiastic leadership of two patients with kidney failure, Susan Christiansen, and Merribeth Anderson, a Utah branch was formed. Initially growth of the National Kidney Foundation of Utah was slow, and its activities limited, but this changed in December 1987, when a testimonial dinner was held for Senator Jake Garn in the Sheraton Hotel, Salt Lake City. Senator Garn had donated a kidney to his daughter a few months previously, so this was a timely as well as a successful event.
The National Kidney Foundation has three main aims: public education about kidney disease, supporting the needs of patients with kidney disease, and support of research into kidney disease. These are aims with which members of the Hereditary Nephritis Foundation will readily identify. All of you will know friends or have family members who have developed severe kidney disease or kidney failure, and many of these friends or family members from time to time need help or financial support. Likewise it is encouraging to hear of another group which aims to support research in kidney disease: hereditary nephritis is an obvious area of research for the Utah Affiliate of the NKF to sponsor. For the coming year, the NKF of Utah has provided a Research Fellowship to Dr Richard Brownley of the University of Utah and Salt Lake City Veterans' Administration Hospital. He will study some of the reasons underlying sudden kidney failure.
For a number of years there has been a persistent rumor that says: if you collect the pull tabs from aluminum cans, they can be turned in to buy time on a dialysis machine for a needy child. This rumor was as false as it was heartless. There never was any such scheme. No child ever died from kidney failure because people hadn't brought in enough pull tabs. There never was any need for these collections, because a dialysis machine is provided by the Federal Government for everyone who requires one. At the end of June, representatives of the NKF and the press met at the Reynolds Recycling Plant in Salt Lake City to transform this senseless rumor into something positive. Jan Brunvand, Professor of Folklore at the University of Utah, explained that the rumor about the pull tabs was a typical "urban legend". Urban legends are stories that spread by word of mouth, often traveling rapidly across the nation, and even the world. The same story tends to crop up again and again, in the same or a different form. It is always impossible to discover where the story arose - everyone has heard from a friend of a friend, and you can never pin down exactly who started it. But this legend has changed. Now, if you take aluminum cans (whole pop cans, not just the tabs) to any Reynolds Recycling Center, you can ask for their value to be donated to the NKF of Utah. As a donation, this is tax deductible and you will be given a receipt for the IRS. The pull tab legend is perhaps the first legend to be transformed into reality!
The NKF of Utah plans a fund-raising Golf Tournament in September and a dinner in early December. More intriguing activities are the "re-birthday" parties that patients who have received a kidney transplant or who are on a kidney machine celebrate to commemorate each year of extra life that the transplant or dialysis has given them.
[FURTHER INFORMATION:]
Deen Vetterli, Executive Director
National Kidney Foundation of Utah, Inc.
Edgemont Professional Plaza
3707 North Canyon Road, Suite 1-D
Provo, UT 84604-4565
800-869-5777, 801-226-5111, fax 801-226-8278, NkfofUtah@juno.com
National Kidney Foundation
30 East 33rd Street
New York, NY 10016
800-622-9010