Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990 TAG: 9004060404
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
For a few days this month, one quarter of the production space at the Gerber Products Co. research center in Fremont, Mich., will be devoted to making MBF, a formula only Raymond Dunn Jr. wants or needs and which Gerber is providing free of charge.
"People here are working on this on their own time," George Purvis, Gerber research director, said Thursday. "We all have our own jobs, and this is one we added on.
"I don't want to talk too much about it," he added. "It's just something we can do, so we're doing it. It's a volunteer project. The Dunns have nowhere else to turn."
Raymond, who lives with his parents in the Catskills town of Yankee Lake, weighs only 31 pounds. He was born with an abnormally small head and brain. He is severely physically and mentally retarded, and cannot speak or see. He cannot move his thin arms or tiny legs without help. His warped little spine has worn a dent in the pad of his wheelchair.
And, since the age of 5, Raymond has been allergic to almost every form of nourishment. All that kept him alive was Gerber's MBF, an expensive, meat-based formula for allergic infants.
But in 1985, faced with declining sales, Gerber stopped making the brown liquid formula. The Dunns tried dozens of alternatives, but they all made Raymond sick.
Gerber agreed to reveal its formula and process for making MBF to any manufacturer who would supply Raymond, but none was willing or able.
So, Purvis said, "We scrounged around for every can of the stuff that was in existence," including many whose expiration date had passed. After obtaining a Food and Drug Administration waiver, Gerber began delivering them to the Dunns.
The unsold backlog prolonged Raymond's life, but didn't make it easier. Asthma kept him inside the house almost all the time. His mother and her helpers had to brush his teeth, bathe and dress him. To maintain his sense of touch, they ran his fingers through dry rice and beans. He slept in a small bed in his parents' room, but rarely for more than a few hours at a time.
"The little guy's been a 24-hour-a-day thing for the past 16 years," said his father, Raymond Sr., a car salesman. The Dunns have no other children.
It seemed life couldn't get any more difficult until the day in July 1988 when Dunn's wife, Carol, got a letter from Gerber. The company said its MBF was all gone, leaving Raymond with less than a two years' supply.
His mother, whose life already was totally consumed by his care, sought help in dozens of letters to political and business leaders, including President Bush, Donald Trump and the Princess of Wales. But Gerber seemed her only hope.
"I believed they wouldn't let me down because there's human beings in that corporation," she said. "I felt that, somehow, that Gerber would not let Raymond die."
Apparently she was right. Gerber employees who had been working with Carol Dunn told their bosses they could assemble the equipment and special ingredients (including beef hearts) to make a limited amount of MBF.
Soon the project will fill about 6,000 of the plant's 25,000 square feet of production space. Other projects will be delayed, and the production run will cost Gerber about $15,000.
Due to a lack of storage space, Gerber plans to produce only a two years' supply. After that, said Purvis, "if push comes to shove, we'll do it again."
Carol Dunn, meanwhile, says she understands why Gerber responded to her appeal: "I'm just a mother trying to feed her son."
by CNB