Muscular Dystrophy Association

Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is a U.S. organization founded in 1950 which combats muscular dystrophy and diseases of the nervous system and muscular system in general by funding research, providing medical and community services, and educating health professionals and the general public.

Criticisms

The MDA and Jerry Lewis have been criticized by some disability rights activists for their tendency to paint disabled people as "pitiable victims who want and need nothing more than a big charity to take care of or cure them."http://thekidsareallright.org/ Critics argue that focusing the public's attention on medical cures to "normalize" disabled people fails to address issues like providing accessible buildings, transportation, employment opportunities and other civil rights for the disabled.

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Jerry Lewis has also made some disparaging remarks towards the disabled community:

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• In 1990, he wrote a first-person essay entitled "If I Had Muscular Dystrophy" for PARADE magazine, in which he characterized those with muscular dystrophy as "being half a person."http://www.cripcommentary.com/parade.html Many in the disabled community viewed his remarks as prejudicial, contributing to the idea that disabled people are "childlike, helpless, hopeless, nonfunctioning and noncontributing members of society."http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/archive/jerry92.htm
• On May 20 2001, he responded to his critics in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning: "If you don't want to be pitied for being a cripple in a wheelchair, don't come out of the house." Again, disability rights activists blasted him for characterizing disabled people as helpless and homebound.