After a horrid year, free streaming of ‘Dancing at the Vatican’ is an inspirational gift and a call to aid Huntington’s disease families

Dancing at the Vatican, the 38-minute documentary featuring South American Huntington’s disease-afflicted families’ remarkable 2017 encounter with Pope Francis at the Vatican, will be streamed indefinitely on YouTube for free starting December 1.

“The film has a distinct Christmas theme – the surprise invitations to the HD families in Latin America all arrived on the Epiphany,” wrote Dancing at the Vatican producer and narrator Charles Sabine in a recent e-mail to me, referring to the Catholic feast day, January 6, on which the HD families in South America received the official invitations to meet the pope. “So, I am going to be encouraging people to regard this as an inspirational gift at the end of a pretty horrid year.”

 

HD families from Colombia, Venezuela, and the pope’s homeland, Argentina, had met with the pontiff at #HDdennomore: Pope Francis’ Special Audience with the Huntington’s Disease Community in Solidarity with South America (click here to read more). Some 1,500 HD family members and their supporters – including my family and me – attended from around the world.

 

For the first time, a world leader had recognized Huntington’s disease.

 

Pope Francis with HD families in Rome, May 18, 2017 (photo by #HDdennomore)

 

Online starting December 1

 

Starting December 1, you can watch Dancing at the Vatican by clicking here. Also, the English-language film now has versions with subtitles in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

 

The producers request that people click on the “subscribe” button on YouTube and leave comments on the film to help facilitate tracking of its viewings and to further support the HD cause. In the spirit of a heartwarming holiday gift, they also ask that viewers share the video with at least two people who have not heard about HD before.

 

According to Ignacio Muñoz-Sanjuán, Ph.D., a leading HD researcher and a co-organizer of #HDdennomore along with Sabine, the papal audience brought “critical” recognition to HD families living in “extremely vulnerable conditions.”

 

“This has touched them and their communities in many ways,” Dr. Muñoz wrote me. “But their plight continues, and the documentary should be a call to action to help those in most need, regardless of where they live in the world.”

 

In the spirit of Dancing at the Vatican, the HD community can come together to “give voice to the voiceless” and raise badly needed funds for local patient associations as well as Factor-H, a nonprofit organization that he co-founded to aid Latin American HD families, Dr. Muñoz added.

 

A message for all faiths and backgrounds

 

Dancing at the Vatican captures key moments of the impoverished, disease-stricken families’ extraordinary journey – some had never ventured beyond their home towns; some even lacked birth certificates – to their meeting with the Spanish-speaking Francis, the first Latin American pontiff in the Catholic Church’s 2000-year history.

 

#HDdennomore was open to people of all faiths and backgrounds, as were the three in-person screenings of Dancing at the Vatican in Los Angeles, London, and San Diego.

 

Sabine and the film’s organizers had hoped to organize additional screenings in the U.S., Europe, and South America.

 

However, the COVID-19 pandemic – which has made 2020 a trying year for all of humanity – forced the organizers to scuttle those plans. Instead, they have focused on the plan to provide free online access to Dancing at the Vatican.

 

Depending on the local impact of the pandemic, some communities might organize in-person screenings, Sabine explained.

 

“For example, in New Zealand, where COVID-19 has been virtually eradicated, there will be screenings in the first week of December in actual full movie theatres,” he noted.

 

Taking on HD families’ suffering

 

Sabine said that the Vatican’s communications department will help promote the online launch. In addition, the producers will promote the film “on all the relevant family organization websites and social media” and also reach out to clinicians, pharmaceutical companies, and nonprofits involved in HD, he said.

 

The screenings and publicity about the online screenings have been sponsored by Roche, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Wave Live Sciences, and Takeda.

 

According to Sabine, the film demonstrates that “anything can be achieved if you put together enough people who believe that nothing is impossible.”

 

Also, he suggested, the HD community can use Dancing at the Vatican to promote the cause by “showing that, as Pope Francis said, it is time for HD families to be ‘Hidden No More.’” 

 

Dr. Muñoz pointed out that HD continues to devastate the South American families portrayed in the film. (An upcoming article will update the families’ stories.)

 

The film and the efforts of advocates such as Sabine and Dr. Muñoz echo the words of Pope Francis, who in his speech at #HDdennomore emphasized “what Jesus himself taught us.”

 

“Throughout his ministry, he met many sick people,” Francis stated. “He took on their suffering; he tore down the walls of stigma and of marginalization that prevented so many of them from feeling respected and loved.”

Happy Thanksgiving! And hail to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries – and the scientists!

Thanksgiving this year is going to be radically different for many Americans, including my family.

 

I will celebrate my favorite holiday just with my wife Regina, home in San Diego.

 

As it has for many Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented us from hosting our usual small group of friends.

 

After eating a healthy brunch, we plan to have a Zoom call with our HD-free “miracle” daughter Bianca, a junior history major at the University of Pennsylvania. We are ever thankful that Bianca did not have to face the devastating possibility of juvenile HD. We will miss her, but are reassured knowing that she will spend the day with her boyfriend and his immediate family in the East.

 

We also hope to Zoom with some of our local friends. 

 

However, despite the terrible pall cast by the pandemic over the 2020 holiday season, I feel extremely optimistic that researchers will find a highly effective vaccine for the coronavirus.

 

The announcements of preliminary data by Moderna and the team of Pfizer and BioNTech revealed that their vaccine candidates reduced COVID-19 infections by 95 percent in clinical trials.

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), described the Moderna data as “stunningly impressive,” noting that he would have settled for 70-75 percent efficacy in a vaccine.

 

“It is really a spectacular result that I don’t think anybody had anticipated would be this good,” Dr. Fauci said. He had similar praise for the Pfizer/BioNTech data.

 

Both of these trials use genetic approaches: they introduce the virus’s own genes into cells to provoke an immune response.

 

According to the New York Times’ Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker, several dozen other companies have embarked on clinical trial programs using some form of approach based on genetics or other cutting-edge strategies. Only ten projects are making vaccines using the traditional approach of injecting weakened or dead coronaviruses.

 

In all, scientists are testing 54 vaccines in clinical trials, and at least 87 more are under investigation in animals.

 

Genetics-based approaches are familiar to the HD community, where researchers have investigated the potential of gene silencing drugs for more than a decade. Researchers in the lead program, Roche’s historic GENERATION HD1 Phase 3 clinical trial, hope to analyze data in 2022. 

 

When I heard of the initial reports of Moderna’s genetics-based approach, I felt deeply confident that humanity would ultimately defeat the coronavirus. 

 

The potentially record speed in getting a vaccine to the world is testimony to the ingenuity, dedication, and focus of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, which I have observed with deep interest in my nearly quarter century as an HD advocate and student of the science – and as a writer summarizing the science in simple terms.

 

In October, posting on Facebook an article on the bold Triplet Therapeutics clinical trial program – yet another genetics-based effort – I wrote the following: “Hail to the many imaginative and hard-working companies in America’s pharmaceutical industry!”

 

I also salute the scientists involved, and the many pharmaceutical and biotech firms of other nations engaged in the fight against COVID-19 and HD.

 

Also, we must not forget the millions of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers and first responders who have heroically attempted to hold the line against COVID-19, thus giving the researchers the time necessary to develop the vaccines.

 

Thanksgiving is our quintessential American holiday. This year, with the pandemic, it takes on a global significance. Across all cultures and nations, the virus has led us to realize once again our common humanity – and the collective efforts needed to safeguard life for all.

 

 

Photo by Bianca Serbin, taken in fall 2009 at the San Diego Botanic Garden (click here to read more).

Annual Huntington Study Group meeting reveals an HD community energized to aid families, develop treatments

Moved online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 27th Annual Huntington Study Group Meeting nevertheless revealed an HD community committed to aiding affected families and developing cutting-edge treatments.

Originally scheduled for Atlanta, GA, the virtual conference took place from October 29-31, with more than 800 scientific and medical participants from around the world. The meeting featured two days of presentations concerning care of HD-afflicted individuals, as well as updates on key clinical trial programs, aimed at producing drugs.

 

On Family Day, which drew an estimated 180 additional people, the affected, caregivers, and advocates heard both expert presentations on coping with HD and highlights regarding research.

 

Research moving full steam ahead

 

Martha Nance, M.D., a long-time member of the Huntington Study Group (HSG) and the director of Family Day organizing committee, kicked off that event with a reflection on the “highlights and lowlights” of 2020 so far. A neurologist and frequent sounding board for this blog, Dr. Nance is also the medical director of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Center of Excellence at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN.

 

We all know the lowlights, Dr. Nance said: the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the 2020 election with its uncertainty, and climate change.

 

“For me, a highlight of this entire year was this meeting,” Dr. Nance said, referring to the great progress in HD research. “The last two days we heard about more things than you can shake a stick at.”

 

Dr. Nance listed the important developments detailed in the scientific talks, including several innovative ways to potentially block the harmful effects of the mutant huntingtin gene. Both the scientists and family members got updates on GENERATION HD1, the historic, in-progress gene silencing clinical trial by Roche aimed at reducing the amount of toxic huntingtin protein in the brain.

 

At the conference, several speakers referred to temporary slowdowns in research programs because of the new safety protocols resulting from COVID-19. Dr. Nance also noted difficulties in accessing some HD community members because of the pandemic in the U.S. and abroad, although she also has observed a helpful “explosion” in telemedicine.

 

However, despite the uncertainty about overall scientific research funding because of the COVID-19 crisis, “research is alive and well in Huntington’s disease,” Dr. Nance stated. “If what happened at this meeting continues, research in Huntington’s disease is moving full steam ahead.”

 

“I found the meeting to be energizing,” Dr. Nance concluded in an e-mail to me on October 31.

 

For detailed reports of the research presentations, see HDBuzz’s coverage by clicking here and here.

 

For the next year, HSG is providing access to on-demand recordings of the conference talks and other events. Click here to register for access.

 

‘Heroes,’ and a thank-you for me

 

Dr. Nance devoted most of her Family Day introduction to counterpoising the difficulties of 2020 with the stories of “heroes” who have stepped up to assist others in the HD community by exercising their unique skills.

 

“We need to hear about some people who’ve done good things,” she explained. “I hope that you can emboldened, empowered by some of these heroes.”

 

Dr. Nance – to my surprise and appreciation – began with the example of me, Gene Veritas (aka Kenneth P. Serbin), the author of this blog, now in its sixteenth year. Dr. Nance recalled how she and I had worked together on our college newspaper (click here to read more). She said that I use my journalistic skills to help inform the HD community, and to be “very up front about my struggles and fears” as a carrier of the HD mutation.

 

I write in this article about myself because Dr. Nance stressed how important it is for the HD community to be informed about its social ramifications.

 

‘I can’t breathe’

 

Dr. Nance recalled my September 2014 report on Jeffrey Bane, a West Virginia man arrested because the police misunderstood his HD symptoms to be the result of narcotics abuse (click here to read more).

 

Dr. Nance replayed the video of a bystander who had filmed Jeff suffering injuries as the police held him to the ground, thinking that, with his involuntary, HD-caused movements, he was resisting arrest. “I can’t breathe,” Jeff said desperately as he asked the officers for help.

 

Jeff only received the help of paramedics after the police had held him to the ground for almost ten minutes, Dr. Nance pointed out. 

 

Then she asked the attendees “to just take a deep breath, pause, and think for a minute.”

 

After 54 seconds elapsed, she resumed her presentation. “Hopefully you took a deep breath,” she said. “I think probably you felt anger, hate, sorrow, sadness, fear, anxiety.”

 

She continued: “We can’t change something that happened six years ago. What we can do is try as hard as we can to keep events like this from happening against in the HD community.”

 

Dr. Nance noted that HDSA has a toolkit for educating first responders, police officers, and fire personnel about HD. The organization provides other resources (such as a special HD ID card) to help HD-affected individuals and their families prepare for potential encounters with the police, she added.

 

(I have explored these crucial themes in other articles. Click here to read more.)

 

‘Your life matters’

 

In examples surely moving to the audience, Dr. Nance presented the stories of several other HD “heroes.” 

 

Inducted into the Minnesota Auctioneers’ Hall of Fame in 2005, Joe, whose wife and daughter died of HD, took “his grief, his sadness, his sorrow” and raised money and bought electric toothbrushes for hundreds of HD-afflicted people, Dr. Nance recalled.

 

As a ten-year-old watching his mother face HD, B. J. Viau started an annual basketball hoop-a-thon that over the years raised some $750,000 for HD research. Among other things, B. J. went on to become one of the founders of the highly active international Huntington’s Disease Youth Organization. 

 

Diagnosed at ten with juvenile HD, Elli started kickball tournaments to support the cause. She became an internationally recognized HD advocate.

 

Dr. Nance also recognized the 791 “heroes” who are taking part in the GENERATION HD1 clinical trial.

 

With HD, she said, it’s easy to become angry, sad, and depressed. However, people can also “stand up tall” to help others. We need more everyday heroes, she added.

 

“Your life matters – not to take away from anybody else whose life matters,” Dr. Nance said in closing. “What you do makes a difference.”

 

Dr. Martha Nance (left) praises the advocacy of juvenile Huntington's disease-affected Elli Hofmeister (in images at right) at the virtual 2020 HSG Family Day (screenshot by Gene Veritas).