More info on fabry

Thank you for your article on Fabry disease ("Sleeper Cells," Nov. 7). As discussed, patients need to educate themselves, especially because the disease is so rare. One excellent resource is the Fabry Support and Information Group (www.fabry.org). This small organization was instrumental in making enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) available in the United States in 2003 despite a slug-speed FDA approval process and underfunded "orphan drug" research.

Those taking ERT today can thank FSIG members (and others) who participated in competing drug trials and those who lobbied Congress to prod the FDA along. Perhaps most importantly, the website's online discussion forum is a place where Fabry patients can connect. My brother Chaz died of the disease before ERT was approved; he was very thankful for the efforts of FSIG and for the circle of friends he met on its website. It's a rare disease, but it doesn't have to be a solitary journey. Shoshana Leibowitz Santa Rosa

Holiday hate mail

Regarding "Justice Averted" (June 13), thieves are scum of the earth and should all be shot! What kind of morons buy weed at 4am, especially at somebody's house? Just buying weed is highly dubious. Blacks have already been known to commit armed robbery at marijuana dispensaries throughout California, so a home invasion of an alleged dealer's home was inevitable. This was most definitely a robbery. And if they had beaten one of my family members, I would have killed them all.

It's about time California recognized and enforced some common sense laws allowing citizens to protect themselves from scum like this. We need to take a page out of the book from Texas. Furthermore, if the roles were reversed here, you'd probably be commenting on how great it is that a black family protected themselves from a gang of "white devils."

You people amaze me and make me sick!

John Roberts Topanga

We print this hateful slick of vitriol, just arrived due to the wonders of the Internet, solely to illustrate why it was perhaps important that Renato Hughes won a change-of-venue motion on his trial. The Associated Press picked up the story, but aired the prosecution's side as truth, not allegation, prompting similar inflammatory responses across the United States. See Justice Averted?

Food as a form of Moral superiority

As we enter the holiday season, the screams of vegan moralists echo across the landscape (Letters, Nov. 14). News flash: Homo sapiens is a bizarre species dissimilar from any other, a species of extreme individual differences. Humans are not primarily herbivorous, although many do well as vegans, nor are we primarily carnivorous, although many do far better physically having this type of diet. Humans are an omnivore species. Lay off the rampant vegan propaganda and let individual needs and preferences establish individual rules. One size fits all doesn't work with humans!

I, for one, hate vegetables. Hate their texture, hate the way they look, hate how they taste. I can best tolerate the ugly things when they're pulverized in a blender into an improved form. But an organic, raw fruit salad alongside a large, thick, rare steak? Ah! Euphoria.

Karl Bosselmann Forestville

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