On National Disability Independence Day, MSJE shared the story of Jewish Texan leprosy patient Stanley Stein, who was admitted to Louisiana’s National Leprosarium in 1931, a time when patients suffering from Hansen’s Disease were generally shunned by society and quarantined for life in leprosy hospitals. Elizabeth Schexnyder, curator of the National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville, LA, shared how Stein launched a patient-run newspaper called “The Star”, which gave a voice to leprosy patients worldwide, publicized new drug treatments, and helped reduce the millennia-old stigma of the disease.