Jerry Lewis, as chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (and host of its well-known Labor Day telethon fundraisers) recruited DeBakey to the MDA's Scientific Advisory Committee in 1970. DeBakey was on the MDA board from 1972 to 1991. He also helped establish the ninth MDA neuromuscular research center in Houston in 1975. The two men became good friends, and Lewis noted in his testimonial at DeBakey's 50th Baylor Anniversary celebration in 1998 that DeBakey had diagnosed a dangerous abdominal ulcer for Lewis in 1978, helped him overcome an addiction to prescription painkillers (which had plagued the entertainer since a spinal injury in the 1960s), and supervised his 1982 coronary bypass surgery.
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