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Article: Medical Research at the Frontier of Miracles Series: EXPERIMENTS IN HOPE: THE NIH CLINICAL CENTER Series Number: 1/2
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- April 19, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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When Scott McCutcheon checked into the hospital at the National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, his body was swollen and his
strength was dwindling from a tumor that his doctor could not locate.
The hidden growth was driving McCutcheon's adrenal glands to
churn out cortisol, and sky-high levels of that hormone were raising
his blood pressure and melting away his muscles.
It was September 1985. "I was getting worse," McCutcheon
recalled. "By mid-October, if someone asked me if I was fixing to
die-I was fixing to die."
So at 35 years old, the water system manager left Mooringsport,
La., for the hospital in Bethesda where top scientists test their
theories in the ultimate medical ...