BREAKING: CELIAC COVERAGE ON WABC-TV NEW YORK
















"Celiac Disease will be featured on WABC News, Channel 7, at approximately 5:55pm (EST) TONIGHT! This segment will feature the Murphy Family and the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University! We hope you can tune in!"

So sayeth Samantha Hoyt of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University.


UPDATE Here's an online text version of the story, including some links for additional information. [Further update: Video has now been added!] The segment turned out to be a concise family profile that made some worthwhile points: celiac disease runs in families; it can remain undetected by doctors who won't test for it because they pre-emptively rule it out as a rare disease; untreated celiac disease can result in osteoporosis and other health problems in children as well as adults.

There was a suggestion that one child's "developmental trouble, learning disabilities and seizures" might be treatable with a gluten-free diet; although that wasn't fully established in this story, I can say from personal experience that, at celiac meetings in Westchester and Manhattan (at Columbia Presbyterian), I have heard medical case studies of remarkable improvement in some infants and children with those symptoms who were examined and diagnosed with celiac disease and subsequently put on a gluten-free diet. I've heard that some parents of children with autism put their kids on gluten-free diets without seeking a diagnosis of celiac disease--I'd recommend that they actively look into a celiac diagnosis with an informed doctor before putting their kids on such diets.