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Article: Canceling Canavan
- Article from:
- Jewish Exponent
- Article date:
- November 17, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightProvided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Sally Friedman
Jewish Exponent
11-17-1995
Canceling Canavan.
If only Karen and Michael Ossip had known.
If only they had been able to take a simple test as they did to screen for TaySachs disease - a test that would have alerted them that they were carriers of a disease called Canavan, a disease they had never heard of.
That text exists today, but too late to spare the Ossips the terrible grief of losing a child to Canavan disease, an inherited genetic disorder that affects myelin, the white, fatty substance that forms a sheath around certain nerve fibers.
The disease, which is most prevalent among Jews of Ashkenazi descent, causes progressive and ultimately lethal nerve damage in children.
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