(2 of 2)
Concession to Bigness. The likeliest candidates for this help are children with otherwise normal physiques whose pituitary glands do not produce enough of the hormone. Even for them the supply problem is forbidding. Growth hormone from animals is useless for man unless it is specially processed, and little of this is now produced. Human growth hormone must be extracted, in minute quantities, from the pituitaries of cadavers. Each year the National Pituitary Agency in Baltimore gets about 75,000 of these glands, mostly from pathologists exploring the skull in postmortem examinations. The agency supplies the Hopkins with extracts from the glands. It takes the hormone from 150 or more glands to treat one child for a year. For victims of the commonest type of dwarfism, achondroplasia, marked by short limbs, large heads and "scooped out" noses, no hormonal or other treatment is effective.
Regardless of whether they can be helped to grow, most of the Little People are determined to show that they can compete on an equal basis with big people in today's world and do not have to fall back upon the circus for a livelihood. Robert Spector, last week's convention chairman, is a Ph.D. working on chemistry patents for Du Pont. Lee Kitchens, an electronics engineer for Texas Instruments and the outgoing Little People's president, literally soared into town, flying his own plane from Richardson, Texas. Since he stands only 4 ft. 1 in., the rudder pedals on his Piper Tri-Pacer have been built up about nine inches to meet his feet.
* As has Michael Dunn (Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Ship of Fools), who missed the Baltimore meeting. He was in Europe making a movie.