NOTE FROM TED: This talk only represents the personal experience with and understanding of Huntington's Disease. Research and therapies discussed in this talk remain an ongoing field of study. We've flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/t...
Charles Sabine was told by a neurologist in 2005, “There’s nothing you can do about this disease. Just live your life as well as you can.” The eighteen years that followed brought a series of revelations that have implications for all our evolution, as well as throwing light on the last truly hidden global community.
His talk, which will encompass aspects of genetic history never shared publicly, will also describe how taking personal responsibility for even the most hopeless destiny can prove there is never an occasion when nothing can be done.
Emmy-award winning TV journalist, Charles Sabine OBE, worked for the US network NBC news for 26 years. That career took him to 35 wars and conflicts where he learnt first-hand the extraordinary limits of the human spirit.
In 2006, Sabine tested positive for the expanded Huntington's gene. Sabine has described why he then chose to switch battlefields to the one facing HD families. “The neurologist said: ‘there is nothing you can do about this disease, just live your life as well as you can’. Later, he realised that: “The neurologist was completely wrong. There is everything I can do about this disease. The problem, is finding the time to do it all.”
That role has led to Sabine speaking at prestigious venues across the world, among them, the European and British parliaments, the Royal Institution and the Vatican.
In 2022, Sabine was awarded an ’OBE’. The first time in history of such honours, that the words 'Huntington's disease' have been used in a citation. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx