AlphaMale

Thank you, Dennis Pollock

Dennis Pollock was in Washington in 2007 for a "Genetics Day on the Hill" when he decided to pay a visit to US Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- Pollock's home state.

Pollock wanted the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act passed. GINA provides some basic health insurance and job protections for people with genetic conditions like Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. Alpha-1 caused the lung disease that forced Pollock to have a lung transplant in 2004.

Coburn had placed a hold on the GINA bill. Any senator can keep a bill from a vote on the Senate floor by the unofficial but all-powerful weapon called a "hold." GINA had widespread support, but the bill was never going to make it to a vote as long as Coburn had it on hold.

Pollock had no appointment, and nobody in Coburn's office wanted to see him. Eventually, he met with an aide who told him the senator would keep the hold on the bill. Period.

"I thought that was arrogant," Pollock said. "I was so frustrated."

He left, and from the steps of Coburn's office building, he got on his cell phone. He called about 10 members of his Alpha-1 support group back in Oklahoma, and asked them all to get 10 of their friends to join in calls to the senator's office.

Within 45 minutes he got a call from Coburn's office. "They asked me to tell the Alphas to stop calling. They were getting so many calls, they couldn't get anything done. I said, 'Will you release the hold on the GINA bill?' They said no. I said, 'Then I won't stop the calls.'"

The Oklahoma Alphas kept up the calls and emails for months. Eventually, Coburn released the hold. The Senate passed GINA 95-0. Dennis Pollock was in the room when President Bush signed GINA into law on May 21, 2008.

Coburn said his concerns about GINA had been resolved, and that's why he released the bill. Maybe so.

But I think it's at least as likely that the Oklahoma Alphas changed the senator's mind.

Dennis Pollock died Monday.

And I'm just saying, Thank you, Dennis.

 

Your lifetime caps are gone

Alphas can be expensive to care for.

Suppose your care is very expensive for years? And suppose you outlive the lifetime caps on your health insurance coverage? That has always been a scary possibility for most Alphas.

Not any more.

Lifetime caps are eliminated, as of Sept. 23, under the healthcare reform law. Annual insurance caps -- the amount of healthcare coverage you have available each year -- will gradually be eliminated, too.

There is more good news for Alphas in the law, including some changes effective the same day.

Because current policies that don't change substantially are "grandfathered in," the health insurance companies can still get you under the old law. But the grandfather clauses will end by 2014.

 

Getting enough Vitamin D?

People with low levels of Vitamin D are 36 percent more likely to develop an upper-respiratory infection.

The peak season is just beginning for upper respiratory infections. Right, Alphas?

Low levels of Vitamin D turn out to be increasingly common, and it's undermining our immune systems. Sunlight gives us plenty -- but not if you slather on sunscreen, as all the dermatologists have been telling us to do for decades now.

If you live in the northern part of the US or in Canada, you can't make any Vitamin D from sunshine till next April anyway. The sun's just too low in the sky. (That's true in Boston, Milwaukee, and Portland (either Oregon or Maine), for some examples.

I take supplemental Vitamin D, specifically D3 or cholecalciferol, which is cheap, readily available and 3 or 4 times more effective than other kinds. How much do you need? The officially-recommended levels are being reconsidered as much too low. Experts all over are recommending 1,000 to 2,000 IUs per day, but they're doing it "unofficially," presumably in fear of the FDA or somebody.

For perspective: Your body makes 20,000 IUs a day if you spend 20-30 minutes exposing yourself to the sun, and you're light-skinned. (Dark-skinned people, especially African-Americans, take much longer to produce the same amount.)

Here is an expert opinion.