One thing you may not know about the late "Quincy" star Jack Klugman: he advocated for the development of treatments for rare diseases. "The problem was that many terrible diseases didn’t afflict enough people to entice pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments. Hence they were 'orphan' diseases. They included Tourette’s syndrome, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, ALS and many more." (WaPo, thanks @caliban23)

  • http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

    I remember the Quincy episode that tried to raise awareness of orphan diseases.   That show did an awesome amount of public awareness work on a whole range of social and medical issues.

    • http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

      …and then there was that punk rock episode that made REEFER MADNESS look like a paragon of good research. 

  • TheMadLibrarian

    For every celebrity who is a publicity hound and general asshat, there are several like Mr. Klugman who quietly did a great deal of good.  Rest in peace, sir.

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    That’s wonderful to hear.

    I hope James Garner is in good health. After the recent losses of Klugman and Peter Falk, he’s the last of my childhood rainy day UHF detective heroes.