Hyfler/Rosner
2004-12-30 15:05:56 UTC
Ellen Burstein, 49, reporter, advocate for MS patients
BYLINE: BY ARNOLD ABRAMS. STAFF WRITER
Newsday
Ellen Burstein, an award-winning television reporter and
essayist whose career was curtailed by multiple sclerosis,
died at her home in Manhattan Tuesday of complications from
the disease. She was 49.
Burstein, who grew up in Lawrence, was widely admired for
her nearly 20-year battle against the degenerative illness,
which attacks the central nervous system.
While careful not to judge those with MS who commit
suicide - she described them with sympathy as "overwhelmed
by despair" - Burstein stressed the importance of fighting
the disease and remaining productive.
"I believe in assisted living, not assisted dying," she
asserted in an opinion column written for Newsday in August
1997. "It is critical that we motivate instead of console.
We need to tell the disabled what they can do, not what they
can't."
She delivered the same message to students at Manhattan's
Metropolitan Montessori School, which she visited regularly
and where she was the commencement speaker in 2003.
"Children can be so afraid of things that are different,
that are 'other,'" said Mary Gaines, head of the school,
whose students range from ages 3 to 13. "She allowed them to
overcome fears of disabled people through her sense of humor
and willingness to discuss her condition honestly."
After graduating from Lawrence High School and Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Burstein earned a master's
degree in educational psychology at Columbia University. She
spent a year teaching disadvantaged children in Washington,
D.C., before starting her television career.
First as a news reporter, then as an investigative
specialist in consumer affairs, she worked for stations in
Dallas, San Diego, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., where, as her
disease took hold, she covered stories on air in a
wheelchair and with a shaved head.
"I don't change what I do," Burstein told Orlando viewers.
"Just the way I do it."
In the 1990s, after she became too disabled to continue in
television, Burstein worked as a freelance writer and
author, using a computer that she operated with a mouth
stick.
Aided by her twin sister, Patricia Burstein of Manhattan,
Burstein in 1994 wrote "Legwork," a highly personal book
about her battle with MS and her successful court suit
against Irving Dardik, a New York doctor whose claim that he
could cure her resulted in revocation of his medical license
in 1995 by state authorities.
"She always said that what counted in life was not the cards
you were dealt, but how you played them," Patricia Burstein
said of her sister. "And she played them with astonishing
grace."
Besides her sister, Burstein is survived by two other
sisters, Jessica and Karen, both of Manhattan; and two
brothers, John of Camden, Maine, and Judd, of Westport,
Conn. Her father, Herbert, an attorney, died in 1983 and her
mother, Beatrice Burstein, a judge in Nassau County courts
and State Supreme Court, died in 2001.
A private funeral and burial are scheduled for today at Beth
Moses Cemetery in Pinelawn. A public memorial service will
be at 4 p.m. on Jan. 9 at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral
Chapel in Manhattan.
GRAPHIC: 1) NEWSDAY FILE PHOTO - Ellen Burstein, right, in
1994 with her sister, Patricia, who co-wrote a book with her
2) Photo - Ellen Burnstein
BYLINE: BY ARNOLD ABRAMS. STAFF WRITER
Newsday
Ellen Burstein, an award-winning television reporter and
essayist whose career was curtailed by multiple sclerosis,
died at her home in Manhattan Tuesday of complications from
the disease. She was 49.
Burstein, who grew up in Lawrence, was widely admired for
her nearly 20-year battle against the degenerative illness,
which attacks the central nervous system.
While careful not to judge those with MS who commit
suicide - she described them with sympathy as "overwhelmed
by despair" - Burstein stressed the importance of fighting
the disease and remaining productive.
"I believe in assisted living, not assisted dying," she
asserted in an opinion column written for Newsday in August
1997. "It is critical that we motivate instead of console.
We need to tell the disabled what they can do, not what they
can't."
She delivered the same message to students at Manhattan's
Metropolitan Montessori School, which she visited regularly
and where she was the commencement speaker in 2003.
"Children can be so afraid of things that are different,
that are 'other,'" said Mary Gaines, head of the school,
whose students range from ages 3 to 13. "She allowed them to
overcome fears of disabled people through her sense of humor
and willingness to discuss her condition honestly."
After graduating from Lawrence High School and Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Burstein earned a master's
degree in educational psychology at Columbia University. She
spent a year teaching disadvantaged children in Washington,
D.C., before starting her television career.
First as a news reporter, then as an investigative
specialist in consumer affairs, she worked for stations in
Dallas, San Diego, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., where, as her
disease took hold, she covered stories on air in a
wheelchair and with a shaved head.
"I don't change what I do," Burstein told Orlando viewers.
"Just the way I do it."
In the 1990s, after she became too disabled to continue in
television, Burstein worked as a freelance writer and
author, using a computer that she operated with a mouth
stick.
Aided by her twin sister, Patricia Burstein of Manhattan,
Burstein in 1994 wrote "Legwork," a highly personal book
about her battle with MS and her successful court suit
against Irving Dardik, a New York doctor whose claim that he
could cure her resulted in revocation of his medical license
in 1995 by state authorities.
"She always said that what counted in life was not the cards
you were dealt, but how you played them," Patricia Burstein
said of her sister. "And she played them with astonishing
grace."
Besides her sister, Burstein is survived by two other
sisters, Jessica and Karen, both of Manhattan; and two
brothers, John of Camden, Maine, and Judd, of Westport,
Conn. Her father, Herbert, an attorney, died in 1983 and her
mother, Beatrice Burstein, a judge in Nassau County courts
and State Supreme Court, died in 2001.
A private funeral and burial are scheduled for today at Beth
Moses Cemetery in Pinelawn. A public memorial service will
be at 4 p.m. on Jan. 9 at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral
Chapel in Manhattan.
GRAPHIC: 1) NEWSDAY FILE PHOTO - Ellen Burstein, right, in
1994 with her sister, Patricia, who co-wrote a book with her
2) Photo - Ellen Burnstein