NYT- Going to Great Lengths by Virginia Postrel

[andyjackson1828]

The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new use for biosynthesized human growth hormone: treating unusually short children who don't have any other known disorder. In clinical studies, the drug, which is called Humatrope and made by Eli Lilly & Company, added several inches to kids' eventual height without producing any significant health risks. Humatrope, in other words, met the regulatory tests for safety and efficacy. But bioethicists greeted the decision with protests.

''We will start to treat the normal as a disease,'' Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania told The Washington Post, adding that ''whenever you take people on the low end of a distribution curve and say they have a disorder, you're starting down a slippery slope.''

It does seem ridiculous to treat otherwise healthy short people as disabled. A man who is 5-foot-3 or a woman who is 4-foot-11 is hardly in the same position as someone who can't walk or see.

Still, being short does, on average, hurt a person's prospects. Short men, in particular, are paid less than tall men. The tall guy gets the girl. The taller presidential candidate almost always wins. And many parents desperately want Humatrope for their short children -- not to treat a ''disease'' but to make their kids' futures more pleasant. These parents care more about the real stigma of being short than about the theoretical stigma of calling shortness a disorder. If adding a few inches means accepting a medical diagnosis of excessively small stature, they'll do it. Why quibble about definitions?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/magazine/31ESSAY.html

[ChompySnack]

1. I'm 6'4"

I have noticed that things are much easier for me in many ways because of this. I had a friend who took that stuff in the 80's and he grew a couple of inches and he felt much more confident.

Just my $0.02

[northzax]

2. and I'm 6'5

and I pay more for clothing, have serious back and knee problems, can expect to live 4 fewer years than someone 5 inches shorter than me, have to buy a larger automobile, bicycle, bed, everything. based simply on my body mass, I am more expensive than someone 5 inches shorter than I, so if I make 5% more, I spend at least that much to accomodate my size in the same lifestyle. so it cuts both ways outside the median.

[andyjackson1828]

3. I didn't know things were so difficult...

i am 6'3" and i don't think I am spending more because I am taller. I have a great wife, but I like to think that it is based on my personality and sense of humor more than my height.


Do you have any links or resources how excessive height correlates with shortened life span? I'd like to see where I measure up.

[maha]

4. This, too, shall pass

I clearly remember in the 1950s reading about very tall young women who were getting shortened. They were having a couple of inches taken off each leg.