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GROUNDBREAKING
TREATMENT
La.’s first sickle cell gene therapy patient aims to fly
Louisiana is staying out of redistricting melee State awaiting Supreme Court’s decision on its congressional map
BY MARK BALLARD | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
Daniel Cressy sits on a hospital bed as his blood stem cells are harvested as part of the process to remove sickle cell disease at Manning Family Children’s in New Orleans on July 30. BY EMILY WOODRUFF | Staff writer
pain of his chronic disease. Once those modified stem cells are reintroduced and take root in his bone marrow, Cressy hopes to be in the air, too. The This story is the first in an occasional series following gene therapy is his second chance after the Federal Aviation Louisiana’s first patients to receive gene therapy for Administration denied his medical clearance to be a pilot. sickle cell disease. Cressy, 22, is the first person in Louisiana to receive a On the third floor of Manning Family Children’s hospital groundbreaking gene therapy that could offer a functional in New Orleans recently, a spinning centrifuge wobbled and cure for sickle cell. Thousands of people in the state live with the same diagnosis, but getting this multimillion-dollar hummed next to Daniel Cressy’s bed. From his neck, thin tubes snaked into the machine spin- treatment isn’t easy. For Cressy, it took 18 months of evaluning his blood, separating out the stem cells doctors hope ations and insurance approvals. Across the state, more pawill help cure his sickle cell disease. tients are lining up, but only one other person, a 10-year-old Later the same day, the bag of blood hanging from the top in Shreveport, has made it through the approvals process of the machine was on its way to Scotland, where the stem so far. cells were scheduled to be genetically edited to reset his ä See TREATMENT, page 4A body’s switch for protection from the searing, unpredictable
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has urged Republican legislatures to take the rare step of redrawing congressional election maps halfway through the traditional 10-year cycle, launching a gerrymandering arms race that has spread to state capitols across America. The fight started in Texas, but now Republican-run states of Florida, Indiana, Ohio and maybe Missouri also are gearing up to redraw election maps and send more GOP members to the House. In response, Democrats launched their own Trump mid-cycle redistricting efforts in states like California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Colorado. But Louisiana will sit out the scrum for the time being while the state litigates its redistricting case before the U.S. Supreme Court. “To the best of my knowledge, there are Murrill no plans to call a special session before our brief is due in a few weeks — we would continue to be stuck between the same rock and a hard place,” said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. “I have said all along, the Supreme Court needs to give clarity to Legislatures. That’s who has the constitutional duty to draw maps, not fed- Beaullieu eral judges.” As chair of the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee, state Rep. Gerald “Beau” Beaullieu IV, R-New Iberia, would be in charge of any
ä See REDISTRICTING, page 4A
Louisiana Democrats working to rebuild the party But a solidly Republican voter base means some crossing the aisle
BY TYLER BRIDGES | Staff writer Beto O’Rourke was fired up when he appeared before an enthusiastic crowd of more than 1,000 people in New Orleans on Thursday night, telling them that Democrats can begin turning around their for-
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tunes in Louisiana. The path, said O’Rourke, a former congressman who lost highly publicized races for the U.S. Senate and governor in Texas, requires “finding and fielding the candidates who are going to show up and authentically and honestly engage with the people they want to serve, learn from them, reflect what they are hearing, campaign like there is no tomorrow.” It’s a path lined with obstacles. In the 2023 elections, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry surprised most observers by
cruising to victory in the primary over his Democratic challenger, negating the need for a runoff. Republicans also prevailed once again in all of the other statewide offices, and they captured enough additional legislative seats to claim a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and the Senate. Republicans have not held so much power in Louisiana since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era 150 years ago.
STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE
Beto O’Rourke speaks during a town hall meeting ä See DEMOCRATS, page 6A at the Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans on Thursday.
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12TH yEAR, NO. 364