There Are Two Cars In Each Garage

Picture two houses, each with two cars in its garage.

One family buys a new car ever eight or ten or more years, cares for it, and is not terribly susceptible to that intoxicating new car smell.

The other family loves to trade in and get a new car every two or three years and loves the new car smell.

Each family has two cars in its garage. Which family provides more revenue for the automotive industry? There is no question that the garage that gets a new car every couple of years is General Motors' dream!

Think about ALS and other diseases. ALS never has very many patients "in the garage" at one moment. They exit and enter at a voracious clip in a cruel trade-in program.

Our agencies and government have a tradition of looking at a snapshot of garages to compare diseases. Two cars are two cars. Somebody needs to look at the number of new cars that enter the garages over time. The significance of ALS is much larger than a pair of full two-car garages would ever indicate!