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Rare diseases deeply affect not only the children who experience them, but also their healthy brothers and sisters, as their parents can attest.    Two entries in November’s “Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival” will focus on what siblings go through, according to the San Francisco festival’s co-founder,…

Imagine living your whole life with a painful disease so rare that only 25 others worldwide have what you have. And that you’re one of just six such people who’ve made it to adulthood. Neena Nizar doesn’t have to imagine. The 41-year-old English professor at Metro Community College in Elkhorn,…

Oklahoma suffers more tornadoes than any other state, has the highest per-capita rate of women in U.S. prisons, ranks second in the number of teen births per 100,000 teenage girls, and has the nation’s third-highest rate of uninsured residents — with 13.9% of all Oklahomans lacking health coverage. As if…

Screening newborns for genetic diseases with treatments that can prevent crippling or deadly progression, especially for rare disorders, has a ways to go in the United States. No state today tests for all 35 disorders recommended under a federal screening panel, and even in those that come close, rare…

A new international consortium based in Paris, and funded largely by the 28-member European Union, intends to speed the diagnosis of rare diseases, while also accelerating the development of treatments for the 95% of such illnesses that currently don’t have one. The European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases (EJP…

It wasn’t until Gordana Loleska’s son David was 14 years old that doctors in their native North Macedonia diagnosed his kidney, vision, and hearing problems as Alport syndrome. Although she had known for years that something was wrong, the news that David would battle a lifelong rare disease devastated…

A violinist with vasculitis, two Texas politicians and a pharmaceutical company whose marijuana-derived therapy helps kids with Dravet syndrome were among winners of the 2019 Rare Impact Awards. Officials of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) presented the awards during a June 22 dinner attended by…

Europe’s umbrella organization for 800 rare disease associations has developed a sweeping initiative to help the continent’s 30 million rare disease patients and their caregivers learn about their conditions, find assistance and receive treatment. Eurordis-Rare Diseases Europe hopes to improve the current piecemeal treatment and support program with a holistic,…

RaDaR, the catchy new name for the U.S. government-run Rare Diseases Registry Program, aims to help patient advocacy groups with limited resources build their own disease registries. The site was developed by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), a division of the National Institutes of…

With 250 rare diseases newly identified every year, scientists can barely keep up — even as the healthcare system fails millions of Americans whose rare diseases have already been diagnosed. That’s the warning from Christopher P. Austin, MD, director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Studies(NCATS) at the…