European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 2, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Howard Ulman associated press a Truex displays the snapshot of his damaged brain like a proud father showing off the first photo of his Newborn child. He Points to two red spots in the Center. They indicate that controversial brain surgery to give him a fresh shot at life is working. Truex once one of americans Best Lon distance runners was rendered helpless by severe Parkinson a disease. In his worst moments he had to be spoon fed. He could t Swallow and he lost his voice. He would propel Forward uncontrollably and smash into a Wall. His body would freeze and his wife and children would get him moving again. Quot it was like carrying a Corpse Quot says his wife Kay. He had tremors in both arms. He  change his Blank facial expression. The former olympic runner needed a wheelchair. That put an end to his Active life As a successful los Angeles attorney who jogged took backpacking trips skied and hunted in Africa. In the 1960 olympics in Rome Truex ran the fastest 10,000-meter race by any american to that Point. Today he limps slowly toward his living room Couch sits and Points to the colourful photo made july 6 at Urcla during a brain scan to Check his condition. In a rare operation in China on april 27,1989, when he was 53, brain tissue from three aborted fetuses was put in Truex a brain. The red spots show the tissue has spread and produced a vital chemical dopamine that he lacked. Quot that really confirms for him that he a got a future Quot says or. Robert Lacono the surgeon. Quot Max was really to the Point where i done to think he was going to survive. He had the worst Case in be  dopamine helps transmit nerve impulses Between brain cells. A person running out of it is like a car running out of Gas says Lacono assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Arizona. The surgery took him and Truex to a Small Hospital in China where oxygen is delivered by Donkey cart and to the fuzzy boundaries of medical ethics. The . Government has banned Federal funding of research on fetal brain tissue transplants on grounds it would encourage abortions. That Issue was secondary to Truex whose disease was diagnosed in 1979 and who had deteriorated steadily in the five years before the surgery. Now the wheelchair remains folded up beside the Couch. His gait is still awkward he tires easily he has tremors in his right Arm and he occasionally stutters. But he has improved. Quot i Don t lose my balance anymore Quot Truex says. Quot i done to fall. I done to freeze up very often and i can  his wife 43, has noticed he s less depressed and jokes More. He even Cooks dinner on the backyard Grill for her and their kids a Gene 16, John 13, an Mindy 10. Across from his White three Story Home on a quiet Street in the comfortable Boston suburb of Milton a pleasant Grassy area rises gently. Now Truex can stroll with Kay around its perimeter perhaps the distance of a Quarter mile track without getting exhausted. He no longer has to awaken her five times a night to help him turn Over or take him to the bathroom. Gene and John no longer have to hold the urinal for him. Truex whose Short Gray hair hides the spots where six holes were drilled in his Skull almost certainly will never return to his pre Parkinson a condition Lacono thinks Truex suffered some mental impairment. Fred Olds remembers a different Truex. As his coach at Warsaw High school in Indiana Olds recalls How opponents would laugh at the tiny Truex who even now stands just 5-feet-4v�-inches. Then the race would begin. Quot he would Lap the whole Field Quot Olds says. Quot he was probably As perfect an athlete As i Ever  Truex who later was on the track team at the University of Southern California was a serious and intelligent youngster a bit shy and not at All cocky Olds says. He had an unquenchable thirst for running. A Grainy 36-year-old Black and White film shows the to headed Truex setting the National Schoolboy mile record of 4 minutes 20.4 seconds. Jim Beatty the first person to break the four minute mile Barrier indoors and Truex a teammate in the 1960 olympics no longer running but still Gutsy Max Truex who was one of americans greatest distance runners times his son Gene 16, while he works out at the Milton Academy track. Ili a ran against Truex in College. Quot the picture that would stay with you of Maxie is this Little Gutsy runner pounding at you around the track Lap after Lap after Lap Quot Beatty says. In College Truex won the Mcaa Cross country championships and set the american 5,000-meter record and the Mcaa two mile record. He competed in the 1956 olympics in Melbourne. No one is sure what brings on parkinsonism or what brought it on in Truex. Running in extreme heat is a theory Truex thinks May be True. He was hospitalized for heat exhaustion three times in the 1950s. Kay thinks Max already showed signs of the disease when they got married in 1974. Quot it was amazing How much he slept Quot she says. Truex a real estate lawyer for los Angeles county could t be heard by jurors. He tried his last Case in 1981. He retired on disability a year later at age 46. Two years ago the family moved to the Boston area where Kay had planned to pursue a doctoral degree in English literature. For years Truex searched for answers. Medication worked Only to a Point Lacono investigated operating in the United states but found it easier to go to the Henan tumor Institute in Zhengzhou China about 400 Miles Southwest of Beijing. Preparatory surgery was done at the University of Arizona where the holes were drilled in Truex s Skull to provide passageways for the transplanted tissue. In China a gynaecologist Quot got on her bicycle and Rode around to the other hospitals to talk to friends to see if they would give us some tissue Quot Lacono says. The . Ban on Federal funding for research on fetal tissue transplants was imposed in May 1988. The following november a National institutes of health advisory committee concluded it is morally acceptable to use human fetal tissue from Legal abortions for research and therapy. But that recommendation was rejected last november by health and human services Secretary Louis w. Sullivan. He extended the ban indefinitely saying such research Quot will increase the incidence of abortion across the  Quot there is no evidence that that a True Quot says or. Murray Goldstein director of the Nihls National Institute of neurological disorders and stroke in Bethesda my. Under the projected guidelines for doing the research Goldstein says the Mother would give permission for aborted tissue to be used but  know if it were used. Also neither the doctor doing the tissue transplant nor the recipient of the tissue would know where it came from. Privately funded fetal brain tissue transplants have taken place in the United states. There have been similar transplants in Mexico England Cuba Spain and Sweden Lacono says Truex Scase was unique because he received More brain tissue than other patients. With Truex he says Quot we be been Able to reverse this always progressive disorder. I feel real secure that what i did was  tuesday october 2, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13