JUST LIKE YOU! Film Screening & Panel Discussion
Oct 7 2014
WHEN:
Oct 7, 2014 at 6:00pm
WHERE:
Conference Rooms
CONTACT INFO:
Joan Coyle
MORE INFO:
Special Event
Celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness Month by learning how people with Down syndrome are JUST LIKE YOU! A film screening and expert panel discussion.
With deinstitutionalization, medical advancements, exciting genetic research on the forefront and community inclusion at an all time high, there has never been a better time to be born with Down syndrome. Still, there are many who say these are lives not worth living and the prenatal diagnosis termination rate is alarmingly high. We invite you to join us for a thought provoking evening as we screen the short film Just Like You Down Syndrome. Three teens living with the condition and their best friends will shed light on their lives and why they are just like you in all the ways that truly matter. Following the film, there will be brief remarks from an expert panel of policy makers, researchers, and advocates followed by a Q&A panel discussion.
Panelists:
Dr. Roger Reeves is a professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Reeves is also on faculty at the McKusick-Nathans Institute for Genetic Medicine.He has studied various aspects of Down syndrome for the last 25 years. He is currently the principal investigator of the Down Syndrome Cognition Project, which researches the combinations of genes in one’s genetic background that might lead to the predisposition for the DS effect to be more or less severe and why development works differently in one has DS than if one does not. Dr. Reeves and his lab use chromosome engineering in ES cells to create defined dosage imbalance in order to localize the genes contributing to these anomalies and to test directly hypotheses concerning Down syndrome "critical regions" on human chromosome 21. Dr. Reeves received his B.S. from Bowling Green State University in 1975 and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1983. His postdoctoral work took place at Johns Hopkins University and he joined the faculty in 1983. Among other honors, Dr. Reeves was awarded the Sisley-Lejeune Award for Translational Research in Intellectual Disabilities in 2012.
Richard Lowry graduated in 1990 from the University of Virginia, where he studied English and history. He edited there a conservative monthly magazine called the Virginia Advocate. He went on to work as a research assistant for Charles Krauthammer, then as a reporter for a local paper in northern Virginia. He joined National Review in 1992, after finishing second in an NR young writers contest. He became NR's Articles Editor before moving to Washington in the summer of 1994 to cover Congress. He was named editor of National Review in 1997. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and a variety of other publications. He is a syndicated columnist and a commentator for the Fox News Channel. His book, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years, was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in New York City.
Adrian Forsythe, a self-advocate for Down Syndrome. A YouTube link to learn more about him is here.
Patti Saylor has been telling her son Ethan's story ever since the night he died in police custody in January of 2013. Ethan was 26, and had Down Syndrome. She says her son's human rights were disregarded when three deputies forcibly removed her son Ethan from a Frederick, Maryland movie theater in 2013 for not having a $12 ticket. He later died from asphyxiation, and his death was ruled as a homicide. The deputies were cleared of any wrongdoing. Patti says he did not deserve to die and she is pushing for training for law enforcement professionals.