Carol Ann Garratt

Pilot CarolAnn Garratt spoke at the EAA Chapter 58 meeting last Thursday about her 2008, record-setting, around-the-world flight in a Mooney, M-20J. See here. The purpose of the flight was to raise awareness and money for ALS - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's disease. Carol's mother was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 76 and died of the disease

CarolAnn and co-pilot, Carol Foy accomplished this flight in 8 1/2 days. They departed from Orlando, Florida, then flew to San Diego California, Hawaii, Guam, Thailand, Oman, Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde Islands, then back to Orlando.

The money CarolAnn raises goes to scientists doing research exclusively on ALS. They have a drug that has shown promise in laboratory mice with the ALS gene and hope to have the drug in human clinical trials soon.

After the presentation, I asked Carol why it seemed that virtually no progress on the disease has occurred in spite of the 70 years that have passed since Lou Gehrig retired from baseball. Her answer was that too few people are afflicted with the disease for Big Pharma to care about. I think that is a possible and plausible reason.

But sometimes I wonder if there is something more at work here. Have we simply reached the limits of genius. We all have to die eventually from something. Or maybe we have formulated the problem in such a way that there can be no clear answer to our research. I hope not, for the sake of ALS sufferers, but why so little progress? It leaves me wondering.