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2008 Dr. David Bodian Memorial Award
Local Philanthropists Honored for Helping Forgotten Polio Survivors
Cresskill residents and business owners Sweta and Yaz Shah are recipients of the 2008 Dr. David Bodian Memorial Award. The award was presented by Dr. Richard Bruno, director of the world-renowned Post-Polio Institute, in a ceremony at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center on Wednesday, November 19. The ceremony was attended by the Shahs’ family and friends, hospital officials and Post-Polio Institute patients from New Jersey and New York.
The Shahs, best known as the owners of Hudson Drug of Cresskill, were honored as “unsung heroes” of polio survivors for the donation of the use of a 5,000 square-foot building that now houses the Post-Polio Institute. The building, which has been completely renovated, is located at 97 Engle Street, Englewood, NJ, a few blocks south of the Medical Center. The couple’s gift has been valued at $425,000.
The Shahs’ award is named for Dr. David Bodian, an unsung hero of polio, who worked behind the scenes guiding Dr. Jonas Salk in the development of the polio vaccine. “The Shahs’ ‘behind the scenes generosity’ has given polio survivors with Post-Polio Sequelae (PPS) a home to which they can come and be cared for and feel safe,” said Dr. Bruno.
PPS are the unexpected mid-life symptoms experienced by polio survivors: disabling fatigue, muscle weakness, muscle and joint pain, sleep disorders, difficulty in swallowing and breathing, and heightened sensitivity to pain, cold and anesthesia. "There are still nearly two-million North American survivors of the polio epidemics of fifty years ago," said Dr. Bruno, recognized as the international leader and a pioneer in the treatment of PPS. "Most Americans and even most doctors have forgotten polio survivors exist, let alone that PPS exists and are treatable." The Post-Polio Institute is the world's foremost PPS treatment and research center, the only facility in the world specifically designed to care for polio survivors with PPS.
Among the speakers at the presentation was Englewood Hospital and Medical Center Foundation Chairman Richard J. Kurtz. Yaz Shah credits Mr. Kurtz as his role model and mentor in philanthropy and the field of real estate, a significant part of the Shahs’ business dealings. Mr. Kurtz spoke fondly of the young couple, who have so generously incorporated charitable giving into their busy lives as business people and the parents of two young children, Sonali, 4, and Samir, 3.
Yaz Shah was raised in Bergenfield, one of three children of Jayshree Shah and Suresh F. Shah. He earned a degree in pharmacy from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science in 1993, and he has been owner and proprietor of Hudson Drug of Cresskill since 1998. Last year, Yaz was elected to the Board of Trustees of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center Foundation.
Sweta Shah was raised in Mumbai, India, where her father, Pravin Shah, still lives with three of her four sisters. Mrs. Shah’s mother, Manjula Shah, passed away earlier this year. In addition to her duties as a mother and homemaker, Sweta is responsible for a long list of tasks related to the couple’s business ventures, from keeping the books for the pharmacy to managing their real estate properties.
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