Down syndrom can be cured

“Down syndrome is not an incurable disease, the time has come to end the social pressure imposed on future parents instigating them into a decision to terminate the lives of their children during pre-natal development,” condemned the practice MEP Miroslav Mikolášik (EPP/KDH) in light of the upcoming World Down Syndrome Day. He believes that contemporary medicine develops new solutions, each day improving live of patients suffering from the disease.

“The current progress in science and research sides with those, who believe in fulfilling life of Down syndrome patients (the “DSPs”). Plenty of people suffering from the diagnosis lead almost independent lives, many are approaching a level, where they can work without any assistance,” said Mikolášik, originally a doctor by profession, who currently chairs the EPP's Working Group on Bioethics and Human Dignity. Referring to multiple surveys published in renowned medical periodicals, the MEP indicated that 99 % of the adult DSPs describe their life as happy.

The most well-known European experts in field – Clotilde Mircher, Laurent Meijer, Mara Dierssen, Yann Hérault and Juan Fortea, confirmed their attendance on an upcoming conference organized by Miroslav Mikolášik and Polish MEP Marek Jurek in European Parliament in cooperation with Jerome Lejeune Foundation, where they plan to introduce emerging solutions concerned with DSPs' medical treatment or over-all life improvement. Participants and stakeholders will have a chance to enquire whether we, indeed, do all we can for people with “trisomy 21”, a technical term for Down syndrome, that got its name due to the presence of an additional copy of chromosome 21. The term itself also influenced the particular date of the World Down Syndrome Day, which has been observed annually since 2006 on 21 March.

Mikolášik also welcomed the fact that the conference is taking place in European Parliament during the so-called Week for life. “French geneticist Jérôme Lejeune - the first person to report the cause of Down syndrome once proclaimed that to discover a cure for the disease will take much less intellectual effort than sending a man to the Moon. Likewise, I am convinced that to protect dignity and human life can cost considerably less than the most ambitious scientific plans. It would be sufficient just to give life a chance – to do as much as we can in treating patients with Down syndrome,” concluded Mikolášik, emphasizing that in both, we can be successful.