Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?

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Ellie Simmonds

Colleen Flynn

Kate Monaghan

Jasleen Sethi

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

BBC One - Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?

Swimmer Ellie Simmonds investigates a controversial new drug for children with dwarfism.

Ellie Simmonds investigates a controversial new drug that promises to help children with dwarfism grow closer to average height. If it can prevent dwarfism, should we embrace it?

Ellie Simmonds, five-time Paralympics gold medallist, is used to an environment where difference is celebrated. But now she’s investigating a controversial new drug that some people argue could bring an end to dwarfism.

A pioneering drug is coming on the market that promises to make children with achondroplasia - Ellie’s form of dwarfism - grow closer to average height. A genetic condition, achondroplasia is the most common type of dwarfism in the UK, and the new treatment raises the question: if cutting-edge medicine can stop disability in its tracks, should we use it?

Travelling around the UK and US, Ellie Simmonds explores all sides of this contentious debate, following currently available treatments for dwarfism, meeting families embarking on the drug trial, others who feel treatment would have positively impacted their lives, and those who are proud of their identity and question the aims of the drug.

The road to acceptance and inclusion for disabled people has been hard won, and many feel these gains are in danger of being lost, while others see only positives with breakthroughs in modern treatments. Ellie draws on her own experiences and reflects on wider questions about the relationship between science and disability.

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