A little ray of sunshine – baby girl healed of deafness with gene therapy
From here:
Who could benefit next from gene therapy that restored deaf toddler’s hearing (msn.com)
No reference to whether mom and dad were vaxxed (inherited adverse event?), but here is an uplifting story.
“Thousands of children across the world who suffer from deafness and hearing loss have been given hope after a groundbreaking trial allowed a British girl to hear noises for the first time.”
“Opal Sandy, aged 18 months, was born deaf because of auditory neuropathy, which is caused by the disruption of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain.
Now, thanks to a “one and done” gene therapy trial being carried out in the UK and worldwide, Opal’s hearing is almost normal – and could yet improve after she became the first person in the world to take part in a groundbreaking gene therapy trial.”
Three cheers for that!
“These results are spectacular and better than I expected,” said Professor Manohar Bance, a surgeon and chief investigator for the trial.
“Auditory neuropathy can be caused by a fault in the OTOF gene, which is responsible for making a protein called otoferlin. This enables cells in the ear to communicate with the hearing nerve.
To overcome the fault, the “new era” gene therapy – from biotech firm Regeneron – delivers a working copy of the gene to the ear.”
Sounds like there is a link to gene editing.
“In Opal’s case, she received an infusion containing the working gene to her right ear during surgery last September. Opal’s surgery was very similar to fitting a cochlear implant, according to Professor Bance. He said the inner ear (cochlea) was opened and the treatment infused using a catheter over 16 minutes.”
Onwards!!!
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We're going to be flooded with these "Gene Therapy is Great" stories over the coming years, to try to mitigate that gene therapy is a complete unknown with a proven problematic history.
Interesting. But a case study of n=1 cannot constitute unequivocal 'evidence'. Long term consequences? Adverse events? etc.. remain. Not long ago people were injecting stem cells into the brains of Parkinsons disease suffering patients....not at all useful. I am irked by the sense that this approach is akin to the grotesque pursuits of Victorian surgeons. The pitfall and simplistic analysis of a gene for every ill seems illusory. The BigPharma/BigMedicine obsession with a 'silver bullet' has been recurrently demonstrated as fallacious, though the medical jabsters, banksters and bureaucrats appear irretrievably addicted to the quick 'n easy $.