Quote:
Originally posted by AKA_Monet
How does sickle cell cause the anemia? I know how it does, but I want to see what your thinking is...
Because these things are not as black and white as we want to make them out.
Sickle cell "trait" is still a haploinsufficiency disease. Missing one of the beta-globin alleles or being a compound heterozygote, still manifests as sickle cell anemia when under medical stress conditions.
Who knows what this boy exactly was genotypically. He carried the sickle cell trait, meaning he did not have a fully functional beta-globin gene product.
To me that immediately spells disaster in whole organ function from heart disease to cancer because blood is consider an organ system, too. Without blood flowing throughout the body system properly, the organ failure is relatively high.
As I understand it, they made the boy exhausted with doing exercises that he was unable to do. That already means his physiological sympathetic nervous system was on full drive. His response was exhaustion to slow his roll. He was too young to articulate his problems to the personnel so they immediately thought he was faking it. Then the personnel attacked him and he eventually, he succumbed to unconsiousness.
Those are the differentials I can come up with from my vantage point, however, I am not a physician. But I do know how these gene product interactions can make fail to cause organ failure, particular that in the heart. That is where most of my grant funding comes from NIH...
|
Wow so in your professional opinion would you say that this was murder or and accident? And thanks for the clarity. I would have never known that the trait has that effect on people. I have a friend with the trait and she is healthy and has had not problems. On a different note, there still hasn't been any arrests made. Do you believe the force was excessive? I saw the tape and the boy look unconscious or limp when they first began to beat and gather around him.