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CF cure is close, walk organizer says
BOARDMAN
About 200 people participated in the 15th annual Great Strides Walk at Boardman Park to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and one of the event’s organizers said its importance is magnified by the closeness of a cure for the disease.
Sunday’s walk, sponsored by the foundation’s Northern Ohio Chapter, is one of about 600 such walks nationwide, which make up the foundation’s largest national fundraising event for research, education and patient care.
The 5-kilometer walk here, whose goal was $45,000, occurred under sunny skies with mild temperatures.
It was one of seven walks scheduled this month in Northern Ohio, and one of four Northern Ohio CF walks that took place Sunday.
The annual fundraising event moved this year from September to May to coincide with National Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month.
CF is a life-threatening genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system.
Thick mucus accumulates in the lungs of those suffering from CF and interferes with their breathing.
For a child to be born with CF, both parents must carry the genetic trait that causes it, said Colleen Novosel of Liberty, an event organizer. About 30,000 American children and young adults have CF, and an estimated 10 million Americans are asymptomatic carriers, she added.
The foundation helps pay for medications for CF patients who can’t afford them and whose insurance won’t pay for them, Novosel said, adding that one of the drugs prescribed for CF patients costs $300,000 a year.
“The foundation is making incredible strides,” said Novosel’s daughter, Melissa Rowland of Girard, also a member of the event organizing committee.
Rowland said her sister, Christine Falleti of Liberty, 38, a teacher in the Niles City Schools, who has CF, is undergoing a corrective gene therapy made possible by the money the foundation has raised for research.
“She’s actually taking a pill that tells that gene what to do,” and hopes to soon begin corrective therapy for the other defective CF-related gene, Rowland explained.
When Falleti was born, doctors told her parents she had a 50 percent chance of reaching age 8, Rowland said.
“It’s critical that we keep moving, because we are very close to a cure,” Rowland said.
The foundation can be reached at 800-344-4823.