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Stu’s Views – Dr. Sheremata will be missed — It was his reconfirming diagnosis that proved that I had Multiple Sclerosis and it was him, that made me know that I had to be my own patient advocate.
~~~ -~ Stuart Schlossman —- G-D bless you! —–
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Dr. William Sheremata’s research and clinical trials at the University of Miami’s medical school led to the FDA approval of a new drug in the fight against multiple sclerosis.University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
BY HOWARD COHEN – [email protected]
This obituary was updated to include family members from a previous marriage and military service.
Dr. William Sheremata, professor emeritus of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, spent 40 years leading clinical trials to find new drugs to treat multiple sclerosis, a chronic and debilitating disease that afflicts more than 400,000 Americans and some 2 million people worldwide.
MS occurs when the immune system abnormally attacks the nerves cells in the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Women between the ages of 20 and 40 are its biggest target.
After 40 years, countless studies and crushing false starts, the first drug for aggressive MS won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval Tuesday night.
Sheremata died hours later early Wednesday morning at 82 — but not before his family and colleagues gathered at his bedside to tell him the good news. His life work, this most promising drug, “a game changer for people with MS,” according to the UM medical school, will be available to patients within two weeks.
“Everyone was in the bedroom with him and he understood it; he was very sharp to the end,” said his wife, Dr. Leah Magel-Sheremata, an emergency medical doctor at Coral Gables Hospital. “He lived for his research. This man was made to work and loved every minute of it.”
The last words Sheremata whispered to his wife started with “Hold it together,” Magel-Sheremata said. She thought he was referring to something on his bed, the pillows perhaps. She asked him what he meant. “Everything,” he responded. “His last word was ‘everything.’”
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