This Week in Sickle Cell News Feb 23rd to the 1st of march

By Sean Marshall

Atlanta Daily world reported this week that Sickle Cell Anemia will be added to Georgia’s medical marijuana bill. It was explained in the article that “State representatives said that after discussions among legislators, sickle cell anemia will be added to the list of maladies that is covered under the Georgia House Bill 1.”

That means that the bill does in fact get passed it would decriminalize medical marijuana in the state of Georgia/.It would also meant that anyone suffering from chronic pain due to sickle cell anemia could get access to medical marijuana in the forms of cannabis oil according to state representative Allen Peake.

It was explained that originally sickle cell disease was not considered for the bill but when “African American legislators and sickle cell organizations were initially outraged that the disease which mostly impacts blacks was removed from the list it was put back on.”

In a direct quote from the article you can sense the real importance expressed by legislators. “Members of our house, who came and expressed a real desire to include sickle cell on the list of conditions, … came to the conclusion that it makes sense to add sickle cell as a disease that could potentially benefit from medical cannabis, so we’re going to add that by amendment,” This was all said by Peake.

It was reported that the bill also covers such illnesses as “cancer, seizure disorders, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS aka Lou Gherig’s disease, Crohn’s, Parkinson’s, Mitochondrial disease and Fibromyalgia.”

This is all good for the State of Georgia who according to the article based their list on what many other states had or were planning on having.

If you want to see the full article it can be found here : http://atlantadailyworld.com/2015/02/25/sickle-cell-anemia-added-to-georgias-medical-marijuana-bill/

The Times of India reported this week that the government will be providing free bone marrow treatments to students. It was stated that the state government (of India) :has decided to provide free bone marrow treatment for students suffering from Thalassemia and sickle cell. This was announced by health minister Nitin Patel in the state assembly on Wednesday.”

According to the article this all statrted because Nitin Patel, a member of the Indian house of commons, was “replying to a question regarding school health checkup conducted by government. The questions were raised by Rajkot MLA Bhanuben Babaria. Patel said that, government bear the cost of the treatment of the bone marrow transplant for students were found to suffer from Thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.”

The details the article gave were that “4.61 lakh students were checked. Of these 272 students were found to be suffering from diseases.” Yhis is important because it shows wheat can be done by a country if sickle cell disease really is important to them.

To find the article follow the link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Free-bone-marrow-treatment-for-students/articleshow/46373583.cms

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