Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Larry Page's Vocal Cords Are Partially Paralyzed

Posted by Soulskill on from the strong-silent-type dept.

theodp writes "Last summer, unspecified voice problems caused Google CEO Larry Page to miss Google's Annual Shareholder Meeting, the I/O conference, and a quarterly earnings call. Now, Page has come forward and revealed that he suffers from partial paralysis of each of his vocal chords, an 'extremely rare' condition. Not unlike what Sergey Brin and his wife are doing with Parkinson's research, Page and his wife will be funding and overseeing 'a significant research program' led by Dr. Steven Zeitels of Harvard Medical School."

8 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Only when by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    all the rich people get all the world diseases, will the funding start..

    1. Re:Only when by werewolf1031 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      all the rich people get all the world diseases, will the funding start..

      Not everything that improves health and quality of life for many, needs to be done for purely altruistic motivation. Better to have research funded for selfish reasons - which then benefits others as well - than to not have the research done at all.

    2. Re:Only when by Sun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I loath a lot of what he's done, but I don't think divorcing "Bill Gate's money" from "Bill Gates" has any merit. I think this is response is just you trying to handle your cognitive dissonance.

      The man was a ruthless copycat and a predator who set the computer world back at least a decade. For that he deserves (and, to a certain degree, receives) scorn.

      He is also a man who decided that his wealth should go to help make the world a better place for people whose trouble do not, usually, receive funds. For that the man deserves (and, to a certain degree, receives) praise.

      Learn to live with these two facts, contradicting though they may seem.

      Shachar

    3. Re:Only when by Sun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it is important (though, I would be the first to agree, not common) to read comments in the context in which they are given.

      If you steal a billion dollars, and then proceed to do good things with them, then you should be applauded for the good you did, while going to jail for the billion you stole.

      Shahcar

  2. Re:I'm tellin ya... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No we won't. You obviously have no concept of the amount of money and time it takes to develop "cures" for most diseases. The personal wealth of these people is close to the order of magnitude of money that can be spent researching one of these diseases over the course of a single year and that doesn't even factor in the number of years (man hours and simply waiting for enough accurate data to be collected) it takes in the end to find a "cure," if there is one. [I wrote it as "cure" because I think the word is frequently used to infer a quick-acting, life term treatment when in many cases that is not and may never be possible]

  3. Re:I'm tellin ya... by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "a cancer that might very well have been treatable, had he not been absolutely mental and gone for "natural" cure."

    Yeah, its ironic isn't it that the man who ran such a high tech company reliant on cutting edge science would head off down the hippy bullshit road to cure himself of cancer instead of taking advantage of 50 years of medical research. It just shows that having a high IQ doesn't necessarily prevent someone from being a complete imbecile.

  4. Re:I'm tellin ya... by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The one with the 6% survival rate, vs the 0% one the alternative offers.

  5. Re:I'm tellin ya... by Ash+Vince · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No we won't. You obviously have no concept of the amount of money and time it takes to develop "cures" for most diseases. The personal wealth of these people is close to the order of magnitude of money that can be spent researching one of these diseases over the course of a single year and that doesn't even factor in the number of years (man hours and simply waiting for enough accurate data to be collected) it takes in the end to find a "cure," if there is one. [I wrote it as "cure" because I think the word is frequently used to infer a quick-acting, life term treatment when in many cases that is not and may never be possible]

    Most medical research nowadays is done by drug companies. They are not interested in "cures" they are interested in finding a drug to manage a particular condition, that way they get to make tons of money from all the repeat prescriptions of their creation. If they came up with a cure for that condition they only get the money from a single prescription.

    If they created a single pill that would cure and vaccinate you against all the worlds diseases they would all go bankrupt within a decade, even if they could sell the pill for $1 million.

    So who knows what is possible when the corporations who fund (and hence choose the direction of) most medical research are not interested in looking? Instead they come up with crap like Viagra as that is where the money is.

    --
    I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.