Update: City Pages has corrected its copy, without acknowledging the correction, from "hasn't had a single seizure" (screenshot below) to "she hasn’t had a single drop seizure." [end update]
Bluestem was thrilled to read Hibbing couple thrilled by daughter’s early response to medical marijuana, John Lundy's July 27, 2015 article in the Duluth News Tribune. Lundy reported:
It's early days, but a Hibbing couple are ecstatic about their daughter's initial response to treatment with medical marijuana.
"We gave her her first dose on Friday morning," Angie Weaver said on Monday about 9-year-old daughter Amelia. "She had a seizure-free day." . . .
Amelia had no seizures on Friday and none on Saturday, Angie Weaver said. As of Monday afternoon, she had had a total of two seizures since starting to take the medicine.
"We know and we understand that Amelia has a very serious medical condition," Angie said. "But all the advocating and all the fighting and all the work was worth it for just one drop-free day."
The Weavers picked up the first 20-day supply of the drug on Thursday at the LeafLine Labs distribution center in Eagan, Minn. . . .
That was in July, and it was terrific news. When we clicked on Amelia Weaver's miraculous recovery on medical marijuana, a headline in City Pages, we expected to read of an update on her condition.
Instead, there's a revision on the part of the reporter.
City Pages' Susan Du reports:
The activism paid off. Since medical weed became legal and Amelia received her first prescription from LeafLine Labs, she hasn’t had a single seizure. The 9-year-old is sleeping, speaking and catching up to the other kids in school.
Why the different stories? The Weavers' GoFundMe site, citing in the City Pages article, provides the answer:
Amelia has seen drastic immediate results from medical cannabis. She has not had one drop seizure since her first dose from LeafLine. She has only had a handful of short GTCs. She's smiling, sleeping, and making cognitive gains!!!!
The Weavers are being forthright about the improvement. Du is the one who doesn't understand the clickbait story she's compiled.
What City Pages' reporter didn't get, but DNT's John Lundy did
According to the Dravet Syndrome Foundation website page, What is Dravet Syndrome?, a "GTC" is an acronym for a form of seizure: "generalized tonic-clonic seizures." On its Medical Information page, the group notes that Dravet Syndrome is "a progressive disorder characterized by multiple seizure types."
On the Johns Hopkins Medicine Neurology and Neurosurgery section on Types of Seizures, there's information on "Atonic seizures (drop attacks)" and "Tonic-clonic seizures (formerly known as grand mal seizures)."
Medical cannabis is producing astonishing results for Amelia Weaver, but she's still having seizures, though even the GTCs are reduced by cannabis. Our readers who have the means to help the family to pay for the drug should do so, as well as work for the expansion of the program to include more types of treatment.
City Pages? Try a correction.
Here's the original passage:
Accuracy in reporting
This isn't the first Du story to catch our eye. In Pro Tip: restore the vote, but try to avoid bad info on gun rights while you're advocating for it, we examined how Du circulated a claim by a Restore the Vote advocate about Minnesota's new gun suppressor law that people convicted of felonies could possess silencers but not vote. She failed to check Minnesota's statutes (and language in the new law as well); despite a number of comments that document the issue, the story remains uncorrected.
Bluestem supports making medical cannabis available to patients of all ages who need it, restoring the vote to people convicted of felonies who have served their time, and gun rights. We also like accuracy in reporting, which we learned in our eleventh grade Journalism class with Mom Burdick in St. Peter High.
Photo: From the July 27, 2015, John Lundy story, Hibbing couple thrilled by daughter’s early response to medical marijuana" which ran above the cutline: "Amelia Weaver, 9, started receiving medical marijuana treatments Friday for a rare form of epilepsy. Her parents say that her seizures have decreased dramatically since treatment began. (Submitted photo)."
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