Post-Schna-ulations

Get Shorty

To continue the theme of moderately disturbing advances in modern science, the following article was in today's New York Times:

Good Results in Clinical Trial of Growth Drug
By LAWRENCE M. FISHER
Published: June 17, 2004

Research that the biotechnology giant Genentech began more than a decade ago could be on the verge of a major payoff - but not necessarily for Genentech.

A newly public biotechnology company, Tercica, which uses technology and patents it bought from Genentech, announced favorable results yesterday from a clinical trial of a human-growth drug for abnormally short children. The company said that patients given the drug through twice-a-day injections had, on average, grown about an inch more a year than they would have without the treatment.


Of course, what attracted me to this article was that I was an abnormally small child growing up (yes, yes, some may say I still am, but I am at least ON the growth charts now for my age!!). What I don't understand is, why is it bad to be abnormally short? Why spend $20,000 a year just to be a few inches taller?
When I was 6, concern for my lack of height led the doctors to give me a bone age test. This would tell them if I was just short because I had yet to grow (and therefore, WOULD grow to a relatively normal height) or whether I had some sort of congenital short disorder (sorry, don't remember the technical name for it) that would mean I would never reach my current soaring heights of 5 feet. They discovered it was the former. So, had it been the latter, would I have been taking growth hormone all my young life??? Strange...(and not Don or Mama). :)

posted by Schna @ 8:18 AM