Committee that selects which rare diseases are tested at birth dissolved amid HHS cuts

[Hekate]

3. Take Phenylketonuria -- another one I learned young from LIFE magazine, and the name stuck in my mind...

It causes mental retardation (as it was known then) if undiagnosed and untreated. The reason for the article was that a big breakthrough had been made, and two little sisters were featured. The older, who had the same name as I, was never going to have a normal life. The younger, caught at birth or soon after, was bright and progressing normally, thanks to a very special diet.

In the following years, as I learned to read labels, I saw that things like cans of soda carried warnings for phenylketonurics that this product was not for them.

So what next, BobK? How’s your contribution to the sum of human agony and misery coming along?