In November 2021 the Haider family excitedly received UK’s Ellie Simmonds, five time paralympic gold medalist in swimming, and the crew at Flicker Productions, at their home in Saratoga, CA. Ellie visited our home to film for her documentary, “A World Without Dwarfism.” The film, commissioned by the BBC, is expected to air in early April 2022.
In this hour-long film Simmonds, born with achondroplasia, leads her audience into her personal journey of understanding families’ and patients’ responses to Voxzogo, a therapeutic treatment for achondroplasia, developed by BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, and recently approved for commercialization by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Our family was one of the early families to have enrolled in the Voxzogo trials. We are grateful and thrilled that the option of therapeutic treatment is available to our son, who has achondroplasia. The development of Voxzogo lines up with the mission of Growing Stronger, of improving the quality of medical care for individuals with achondroplasia. In the documentary, Simmonds digs deeper into this position of ours, and learns about our work at Growing Stronger.
We had a blast hosting Ellie Simmonds, filming with her in the beautiful Santa Cruz ocean waves, cooking and eating dinner with her at home, and having lots of thought-provoking conversations. What a privilege to be in the company of a world class athlete. Can’t wait for the film to be released!
November 2021
