"People like me are endangered and now they want to make me extinct," Little People of America spokeswoman Leah Smith said in 2015 of the growth drug vosoritide.
Posted on 09/29/2020 8:46:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A new drug offers children with dwarfism the chance at a life with fewer medical issues and closer-to-average height — but there is controversy over whether normalizing dwarves’ bodies is ethical.
A study published this month in the journal the Lancet reported that a once-daily injection of growth drug vosoritide “is an effective treatment to increase growth in children with achondroplasia,” which is the most common form of dwarfism.
“The main purpose of the drug is to improve the quality of life for children with achondroplasia,” Dr. Melita Irving, a consultant clinical geneticist and the leader of the UK trial for vosoritide, told the Guardian. “I see benefits in so many aspects of their lives — physically, psychologically, functionally and with respect to their health as well. It’s very exciting for those children and their families.”
The growth drug is a major development, as there are currently no effective therapies for achondroplasia, and it is known to cause a variety of chronic health issues including sleep apnea, spinal stenosis and skull issues. These are often treated with surgical operations which bring on further complications, including “paralysis, pain on a daily basis, sleep apnea and serious neurological complications,” said Irving.
Although vosoritide may help to rid children with achondroplasia of future health problems, some have deemed it controversial since it would “fix” their short stature.
“People like me are endangered and now they want to make me extinct,” said Leah Smith, a spokeswoman for Little People of America, told the Guardian.
“If I could take a drug to get rid of my spinal stenosis [when the spinal column narrows and starts to compress the spinal cord], I would take it,” disability lecturer Erin Pritchard, who has achondroplasia, told the Guardian.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Why not?
They have no problem hormonally altering children’s bodies to make them *transgender*.
Reality is insanity.
Typical, condemn children to shortened (no pun intended) lives with pain & limitations so you can feel you are not disabled.
People like this lady should be exposed for who they really are, bitter and vengeful souls who care not if others suffer.
I’ve heard (sorry!) the same argument from the deaf, claiming that cochlear implants giving hearing is somehow a bad thing—a threat to ‘deaf culture’. I’m old enough to remember seeing a video/film of a young woman hearing music for the first time. She started crying.
Too late for Mini Mike.
no one wants to make her extinct
no one demands she take it or change in any way she doesn’t want to
thismis offering choice to others to not have to live with an abnormal condition they do not wish to live with
no one mandates they take it either
and of course like anything medical its not offered for free so they really need to want it and put money towards it
Can you imagine a child with dwarfism knowing he could have been even a tad bit more fully grown but he was denied that chance?
LOL
It’s too late for Robert Reich, George Stephanopoulus and Chuck Todd...
I have a Downs’ brother-in-law, and I love him, and he is wonderful. That said, if there had been a cure, of course my mother-in-law would have given it to him. Besides being able to function more independently, he would have a healthier, longer life, and we would still love him, even if he were not quite so lovable.
Others are okay with finding Downs’ children in the womb and killing them. That’s another way to become “extinct”.
Please understand that as they can fix physical problems they will do so and this is not a bad thing.
Once upon a time there were many more blind people in the world then they discovered that by using silver nitrate drops they could reduce the incidents of children going blind.
These children were not made extinct, they were allowed to develop normally.
Prior to that these children ended up often abandon to die, turned into beggars or institutionalized.
Currently I am facing eye surgery so I will be able to continue to see. I do not see this as diminishing me as a person or making me extinct but as a normalization of my life.
I will be blunt if you do not want people to be made extinct a treatment will help prevent women being pressured to abort their babies because they might be a dwarf. Once you are aborted you are extinct.
Well said.
Little persons have developmental biochemical reasons for their condition. The women is sadly a person who gets self worth by being an object of sympathy.
This reminds me of the deaf people who are opposed to cochlear hearing implants that allow the deaf to hear, some for the first time in their lives. Sheer insanity. Why wouldn’t someone want to be a normal height? I’m 6’ 2” and I can’t imagine wanting to be three or four feet tall.
...and then later on she heard rap and started crying again.
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