[annie laurie]

This article is several months old, but I just ran across it today.

[annie laurie]

Ping

[martin_fierro]

Huntington’s disease is a rare (1 in 10 000 people) neurological condition whose onset occurs between the ages of 35 and 50. The most striking symptoms are involuntary abnormal movements of the limbs, head and neck. These are accompanied by mental symptoms (anxiety, irritability, depression) and intellectual deterioration leading to dementia. Death occurs 15 to 20 years after disease onset

Just damn.

[AnAmericanMother]

Too late for Woody Guthrie, but it will be a godsend to many.

An additional horror of this disease is that it's a dominant gene - you have a 50-50 chance of inheriting it from a parent with Huntington's. By the time it was diagnosed, the victim had almost always already married and had kids, passing it on to another generation.

It looks like Arlo Guthrie (of "Alice's Restaurant" fame) has dodged the bullet, I don't think he or any of his surviving siblings ever got tested, but he's well beyond the age when the first symptoms develop.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!