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Cystic Fibrosis: The Race Against Time
It's a disease that claims the lives of thousands of young people each year... silently being passed on from one generation to the next. Few of us understand or even recognize the illness.. the innocent, healthy faces of those it threatens disguise its menace. Through the story of one afflicted family's personal race against time, we'll meet the killer -- Cystic Fibrosis.
Cystic Fibrosis, or CF, is the most common life-shortening, inherited disease in the U.S., affecting about 30,000 people. An additional ten million Americans, or one in 29, are symptomless carriers of the defective CF gene and and can pass it along to their children.
A lifelong illness, CF is marked by chronic lung infections, clogged airways, digestive and reproductive problems that get increasingly severe. Treatments including chest physical therapy, exercise, aerosols and antibiotics are helping patients live longer. While there is still no cure, today the average life expectancy of someone with CF has increased to 31 from just eight in the 1960's, and gene therapy has offered true hope for the future.
Cystic Fibrosis: The Race Against Time, a 30-minute TV special, was created for FOX's The Health Network as part of the award winning The Cutting Edge Medical Report series. The episode is co-hosted by Bonnie Ramsey, M.D. of the University of Washington School of Medicine.
This program is produced by Information Television Network and is made possible by educational grants from Genzyme Corporation and Ortho-McNeil. For more information about Cystic Fibrosis, contact CF Care at (800) 232-8773.
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