Lou Gerhigs Disease

Mercer County Judge Appointed in Monsanto Case; May Delay Trial

9th Judicial Circuit Judge Derek Swope issued an order just after 4 p.m. Monday, calling for a status conference at 12:15 p.m. Sept. 6 to discuss postponing Bibb et. al. v. Monsanto.

UPDATE, 12:08 p.m., Aug. 29, 2011

West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Justice Margaret Workman announced just before noon Monday, that 9th Judicial Circuit Judge Derek Swope of Mercer County has been appointed to preside over the Bibb v. Monsanto class action lawsuit, set to begin Sept. 6.

Spaulding announced Friday he has Lou Gherig's disease and would step down from the case.

Workman had previously appointed Senior Status Judge James Holliday to preside on Spaulding’s other cases during the Monsanto trial, which is expected to take several months.

Workman said Holliday will continue to assist with Spaulding’s docket throughout his illness.

ORIGINAL STORY, 9:17 a.m., Aug. 26, 2011

A Putnam County Circuit Court judge made a startling revelation in court this morning and stepped down from a very high profile case.

Before a motion hearing in the upcoming Monsanto civil lawsuit, Judge O.C. Spaulding told the court he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS is commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

He received the diagnosis earlier this week at Cleveland Clinic. The disorder is can cause weakness, atrophied muscles, respiratory problems and other severe, life-threatening issues.

He's been a judge in Putnam County for several years.

Spaulding said he not sure how his diagnosis will effect the upcoming Monsanto civil lawsuit. He said he has asked the state supreme court to get a new judge appointed.

Futurity.org – Cause of Lou Gehrig's disease found

, Provides a common target for drug therapy and shows that all types of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are, indeed, tributaries, pouring into a common river of cellular incompetence.

“This opens up a whole new field for finding an effective treatment for ALS,” says senior author Teepu Siddique, a professor of neurology. “We can now test for drugs that would regulate this protein pathway or optimize it, so it functions as it should in a normal state.”

The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of the neurons relies on efficient recycling of the protein building blocks in the cells. In ALS, that recycling system is broken. The cell can’t repair or maintain itself and becomes severely damaged.

The discovery of the breakdown in protein recycling may also have a wider role in other neurodegenerative diseases, specifically the dementias. These include Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia as well as Parkinson’s disease, all of which are characterized by aggregations of proteins, Siddique says. The removal of damaged or misfolded proteins is critical for optimal cell functioning, he adds.

This breakdown occurs in all three forms of ALS: hereditary, which is called familial; ALS that is not hereditary, called sporadic; and ALS that targets the brain, ALS/dementia.

In related work, researchers at Northwestern also discovered a new gene mutation present in familial ALS and ALS/dementia, linking these two forms of the disease.

Siddique has been searching for the causes and underlying mechanism of ALS for more than a quarter century. He was initially drawn to it because, he says, “It was one of the most difficult problems in neurology and the most devastating, a disease without any treatment or known cause.”

ALS affects an estimated 350,000 people worldwide, including children and adults, with about 50 percent of people dying within three years of its onset. In the motor disease, people progressively lose muscle strength until they become paralyzed and can no longer move, speak, swallow, and breathe.

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