December 1989. I could never forget that month. The average temperature was just 18 degrees in Connecticut, and that was the coldest December on record. The temperature was a good 10 degrees below “normal,” and if that difference were to be maintained over a long period, those thoughts of global warming would just be iced over memories. A major glacial advance would get underway. We would experience a new ice age!

Almost daily, the temperature hovered near or below zero, and the entire landscape was encased in ice. I was even called to testify about the heinous nature of a murder that was committed during that month, based upon the brutal cold. But through it all, there was warmth in the air, and during that harsh month, Beth Renee Davis and Ira Elliot Wolmer were married on December 16th at Beth Jacob Synagogue in Norwich, Ct.

Beth was an associate in a large New York law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom while Ira was a cardiologist who graduated from Yale University and received his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where his own father was a pediatrician.  If any family had a grasp of medicine, it had to have been the Wolmer family, and the love between Ira and Beth was certainly exceptionally strong.



Was it coincidental? Within two weeks, the ice age weather pattern began to melt away, and on New Years Eve, a night veiled in dense, blinding fog, the real warmth got underway. January 1990, the very next month, became one of the warmest Januarys on record. The glacial pattern was history, and something else began to melt away following the Wolmer marriage.



Until then, our knowledge of treating cancer, especially multiple myeloma, seemed to be frozen in time. The treatments involved chemo, or more chemo, and the outcomes were devastating for so many. But just as the Wolmer’s marriage seemed to play a role in melting away the most brutal cold wave of the century, the circumstances of their life together also unlocked some medical mysteries that were frozen away for ages and beyond.



In 1995, only six years after that special December day, 35-year old Dr. Ira Wolmer was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. My own diagnosis occurred a year later, in 1996, and the resources for treatment were very limited. Dr. Wolmer was exceptionally young to be diagnosed with this disease that breaks down the immune system, kidneys and heart, as well as causing painful bone fractures. No cancer is easy, but this is one of the most painful types. Usually, a person reaches 50 or 60 before diagnosis. Dr. Wolmer’s diagnosis came tragically early in his life. During the mid-90s, the median length of survival after diagnosis was just 33 months. The most aggressive form of treatment involved stem cell or bone marrow transplantation. Usually, one’s own stem cells were collected after high dose chemo knocked out as many myeloma cells as possible. Then, the stem cells were reinfused in an attempt to recreate the immune system. Sometimes, marrow or stem cells were infused from a closely matched donor, but the morbidity was always high with this procedure because of rejection problems. One of the foremost centers for such aggressive treatment was at the University of Arkansas under the direction of Dr. Bart Barlogie.  That center has become one of the premier myeloma treatment centers in the country. And in 1995, Dr. Wolmer wanted to seek out the most aggressive treatment possible. So, this New York doctor heads for Arkansas and tries to get his life back.  During then, he had no fewer than three transplants and even tried an experimental vaccine. Unfortunately, nothing had worked for him. But his wife did not give up.At the time, there was a lot of news about a new concept of attacking cancer cells utilizing the ability of some medicines to be anti-angiogenetic. Tumor cells, like any other cells, need nourishment and blood to survive. Blood vessels are grown to these cells and become the lifelines for their growth and survival. Much of the work with this concept was taking place at the Children’s Hospital Boston under the direction of Dr. Judah Folkman, and Beth Wolmer wasted precious little time contacting him.While the idea seemed new in the mid-1990s, it truly was an idea whose time had come. Back in 1971, Dr. Folkman published a paper presenting his hypothesis that cancerous tumors require a blood supply, and dedicated blood vessels. Without them, the tumor cells would shrink, and possibly die. Then, about 20 years later, Opthamologist Robert D’Amato joined Folkman’s lab in an attempt to find the relationship between age-related macular degeneration and uncontrolled blood vessel growth – angiogenesis. In 1993, D’Amato looked into finding angiogenesis inhibitors, and what did he find? That bad, old drug, Thalidomide! Remember that one?Back in 1950, Thalidomide was widely prescribed around the world as a sedative and anti-morning sickness drug. Fortunately, the drug was never marketed then in the U.S., but it was used in Europe, Canada, Australia, Asia, Africa and South America. Those properties which allow Thalidomide to cut off blood supplies to tumors, also cut off blood supplies to growing fetuses. By 1961, it was clear that Thalidomide was a disaster. As many as 10,000 babies were born with stunted limbs. The world was horrified. Thalidomide was banned around the world, and when it resurfaced in Folkman’s lab, the proposal for its use seemed beyond daring. Yet, for someone like Dr. Wolmer, a drug just like this one could be his last resort, and Beth pushed hard for her husband to receive it, and when she talked with Folkman about it, she said, “It was like a light bulb went off. ” She went to her husband’s Arkansas doctor, Barolgie, and asked that he call Folkman. But at first, Barlogie would have little to do with this concept until Folkman convinced him that even with a blood cancer such as myeloma, blood vessels are important. Yet, as hard as Beth pushed, it would not be until the fall of 1997 when Dr. Barlogie had obtained permission to test Thalidomide on Wolmer, and unfortunately, by then, it was too late. Ira Wolmer died on March 1998 – just three years after diagnosis. But Dr. Barlogie did test other end-stage patients, and for some, the results were nothing short of miraculous. In six patients, cancer levels dropped 75 percent, and in seven other patients, the levels dropped 50 percent. Overall, about one-third of these dying patients came back to life, and since then, the treatment for myeloma and other forms of cancer has never been the same. It is a whole new world.I like to think of the eras as “BT,” before Thalidomide, and “AT,” after Thalidomide. During “BT,” the options were so limited, but now dozens upon dozens of new drugs have been developed, some as derivatives of Thalidomide, others using the processes thought involved with Thalidomide. With this drug, the process may be far more involved than blood vessel growth. The entire environment is being impacted, and the treatment is far more targeted than the standard chemo approach. When I began Thalidomide in late 1998, nobody knew the proper dosing. I took too much, and I developed very serious neuropathy which deadened the nerves in my hands and feet. I have trouble walking, and I can’t play the piano like the old days. But I am still here, and since 2001, derivatives for Thalidomide became available in clinical trials. Now these drugs are being approved for use by the FDA. These have far fewer side effects. I have been taking them for the past five years, and these years have been wonderful – my best.Because of the love and persistence of a dying patient’s wife, thousands of cancer patients have a new life, and instead of the gloom of that fog which shrouded the frozen landscape back on New Years Eve in 1989, there is a wonderful new light of optimism and hope.