Wexler, Milton

▪ 2008

      American psychoanalyst

born Aug. 24, 1908 , San Francisco, Calif.

died March 16, 2007 , Santa Monica, Calif.

launched the Hereditary Disease Foundation during the 1970s in an effort to seek a cure for Huntington disease, a relatively rare progressive and invariably fatal hereditary neurological disease characterized by irregular and involuntary movements of the muscles and eventual mental and physical deterioration. Wexler, whose former wife was afflicted with the disease, was inspired to find a cure because his two daughters might have inherited the disease. Using his cachet as a noted psychoanalyst to Hollywood celebrities, Wexler enlisted a cadre of scientists who worked in laboratories scattered throughout the country; in 1983 the researchers located the genetic marker for Huntington's, and in 1993 they found the gene itself. The discovery led to a test that could detect the defective gene, but Wexler's daughters chose to to forgo the test because the disease remained incurable.

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