Happy talk

Amid the gloom, three bits to make you feel a little better.

- Last week, AP reported that Congress had passed, and Shrub is expected to sign, a bill

forbidding employers and insurance companies from using genetic tests showing people are at risk of developing cancer, heart disease or other ailments to reject their job applications, promotions or health care coverage, or in setting premiums. ...

Researchers supported the bill because Americans have been refusing to take genetic tests or have been using false names and paying cash because they didn't want the information used against them by their employer or insurance company, [Francis] Collins[, head of the National Human Genome Research Institute,] said.

This is not the first attempt to ban genetic discrimination: The National Human Genome Research Institute says that 41 states have laws regarding genetic discrimination in health care and 31 have laws about such discrimination in the workplace. Bill Clinton issued an executive order banning the federal government from requiring any sort of genetic test or considering genetic information in hiring or promotions. Still, there has never been a federal-level law before and it has been a long time coming.

It's also necessary:

A 2001 study by the American Management Association showed that nearly two-thirds of major U.S. companies require medical examinations of new hires. Fourteen percent conduct tests for susceptibility to workplace hazards, 3 percent for breast and colon cancer, and 1 percent for sickle cell anemia, while 20 percent collect information about family medical history.

The fact is, in the absence of a law specifically banning the practice, employers and insurers will use any information they can gather about you in whatever way they think will help their bottom line. Even with the law, they are likely to continue to do so until there are actual consequences for doing otherwise.

The bill is by no means perfect and some language was changed at the behest of the insurance industry; nonetheless, it is a real step forward. And about time.

- Speaking of things genetic, this story from The Independent (UK) is over a week old but I just became aware of it.

A pioneering gene therapy trial has helped a blind man to see in a breakthrough that brings hope to millions affected by eye diseases. British scientists have claimed a world first for the revolutionary treatment, which involved a single injection into the retina at the back of the eye.

Steven Howarth, 18, from Bolton, who has a rare inherited eye disorder which has left him with extremely poor vision and completely unable to see in the dark, improved sufficiently after the treatment to be able to navigate a "maze" in conditions similar to street lighting at night.

The video of him before and after the treatment is startling:



There have been six trials of this gene therapy, three in the UK (including Howarth) and three in the US. The other two in the UK showed no ill effects but no improvement from the treatment, while those in the US showed improvement but not as dramatic as that of Howarth. Still, that means of six subjects, four showed improvement and none showed ill effects (one suffered some retinal damage but that is believed to have been caused by the surgery, which is quite delicate, rather than the gene therapy itself). That can only be described as quite promising.

Let's not get too excited about gene therapy:

It is only the second time gene therapy has been proved successful in humans, after trials showed it was effective in the rare inherited disorder called SCID (severe combined immune deficiency) which leaves babies without a functioning immune system so they have to live in a bubble to protect them from infection.

Still, it is definitely worth a smile.

- But if you really want to smile, this is the story. I heard about it at The Core 4.

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of [the] Western Oregon University [softball team] uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center field fence.

But after she rounded first base, her knee blew out. She collapsed and crawled back to first.

What to do? Continuing on her own was out of the question. If they sent in a pinch runner, the substitute would have to stay at first and the home run would become a single. If her teammates helped her, she'd be called out. But there was somebody that could help: the opposing team.

Central Washington [University] first baseman Mallory Holtman, the all-time home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky's legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg. ...

"We didn't know that she was a senior or that this was her first home run," Wallace said Wednesday. ... "We just wanted to help her."

What makes it an even better story is that in helping Tucholsky's three-run homer count by literally carrying her around the bases, Holtman and Wallace were helping to end to their own team's chance to make the playoffs: Western Oregon won the game, 4-2. Even with that, Holtman brushed it off as something she and Wallace figured anyone else would do.

It's a wonderful story. But it also occurs to me: What does it say about us, about how we think of sport, of competition, of the drive to win win win here there and everywhere that we find this story so amazing?

It wasn’t all the long ago that even in professional sports some measure of sportsmanship was to be found. I still remember seeing a tennis match between Rod Laver and John Newcombe at a time they were both professionals, during which a linesman made a blatantly bad call against Laver. As Laver stared in disbelief and the normally docile audience moaned, Newcombe motioned to Laver to serve in a way that made it clear he had no intent of trying to return serve: He was in effect going to give the point back. Laver refused. The two went back and forth for a few moments until Newcombe agreed to play the point.

That was sportsmanship on both sides.

Still, I shouldn't be quite so much of a cynic here and just appreciate what was done by a couple of people who cared more about doing the decent thing than about their own personal benefit.

Footnote: I don’t remember who won the match, but I do remember Laver won the point. Which is another smile.