Dede Weldon Casad

The Methuselah Project Dede Weldon Casad

After Dr. Addie McClellan, a pediatrician, discovered she had a young patient with Progeria, the aging disease, she was devastated. Eager to help this child with such an unusual and strange disease she asked her best friend, Dr. Paula Lackey, a histotechnologist, to help her find a cure. Working night after night for months they came upon a formula that appeared to reverse the cell production of the disease. Eager to test the formula with her young patient, even though the FDA had not approved of it, Dr. McClellan sought permission from the child's reluctant parents. Hoping to keep the formula and treatment secret, the plan, unfortunately was secretly leaked. Immediately, there was a frenzy of activity openly and surreptitiously to obtain the formula by a pharmaceutical company interested in exploiting it for profit, the Federal Government, hoping to destroy it as a threat to Social Security, and a cult parson who thought he was Methuselah. The two doctors were threatened with harassments, break-ins and life threatening exposures. With Dr. McClellan's practice now in jeopardy, Dr. Lackey's love life destroyed, and the world clamoring for what they thought was the 'fountain of youth, ' the two doctors had to make a decision as to the disposition of the formula. That decision was as traumatic as the disease itself