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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."

10 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 Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Informative

      Specifically the Gates foundation is working on eradicating polio at the moment, he just put $50 million in the pot and the taliban have finally given health workers paperwork to let them pursue their goal. He said on NPR the other day that his next stop after polio would be Malaria. You can say what you want about his Microsoft days, but given what he's doing now he's a great guy in my book.

  2. And what do we learn from this ? by Foske · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No matter the number of digits in your bank account, in the end you're still human... A very complex and wonderful piece of engineering, way above the complexity that we understand. Kudos for funding research, and all the best for this man...

    1. Re:And what do we learn from this ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...A very complex and wonderful piece of engineering, way above the complexity that we understand...

      You're talking about perl here, right?

  3. I'm tellin ya... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We go out and get those top 10 richest people on the planet... You know the ones that own 60% of the world and all the stuff in it...

    Infect them with aids.. Give them all cancer. Heck a whole bunch of diseases.. Toss in the flu and common cold.

    We'll have cures for all of it by the end of the year.

    It's time we start exploiting a valuable resource. Rich people.

    We're not currently using them for anything but placeholders...

    1. 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]

  4. Some advice. by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't yell as much at your employees, throw a chair once in a while.

  5. Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had partial vocal cord paralysis for almost a year...it was miserable. It hurt to talk. I went to specialists, got scoped multiple times, and they said if it didn't clear up after a month or so, it was likely permanent. They put me on all kids of drugs, and then prepared speech therapy for me. I read up about it, but it's just crazy to understand first-hand how how of a gift it is to have the ability to speak. To simply communicate. I had to write down everything I wanted to say to people - and half my job was to speak and teach.

    That year was _not_ fun.

    There is a good ending: near the end of that year, I went to a dev camp for a week, but, I was diagnosed with a sinus infection right before I left. They gave me the regular jar of antibiotics. I got a chance to rest that week, and take my meds.

    Then I came home...the next day I went to the grocery store and gave them my order. The deli lady said "Oh...you've got your voice back...when did that happen?". I went home and said "Honey, I'm home". My wife was cried tears of joy, jumped up and gave me one of the biggest hugs of my life. I could talk again.

    It sounds like his case is more severe in nature, but here's hoping...you never know.

    -jm

  6. Re:Prostate cancer by Kiwikwi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Prostate cancer is very common among older men, but it's more often an annoyance than a killer, since people usually die of other causes before the cancer can kill them.

    To quote the doctor treating one of my relatives, it's a cancer you die with, not of.

    The relative 5-year survival rate is nearly 100%. The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%. The 15-year relative survival rate is 93%.

    (US numbers)

    That's why prostate cancer has low priority, compared to e.g. breast cancer, which has a relative 1-year survival rate of 96%, and 85% for 5 years (UK numbers).