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State Representative Rod Hamilton
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-5373
For more information contact: Jason Wenisch 651-296-2317
NEWS RELEASE
REP. HAMILTON AUTHORS ‘LEO’S BILL’ RESOLUTION
ST. PAUL – State Representative Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) said he was so moved by a Jackson County couple’s personal tragedy that he is authoring a bill in their son’s memory.
Hamilton’s “Leo’s Bill” legislation, named after Andrew Nesseth’s and Lindsay Chapman’s one-year-old son Leo who died in June of a rare and fatal genetic disorder, would designate the third week of September as Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week in Minnesota.
“There are many different forms of Mitochondrial Disease, and little Leo’s happened to be Alpers Syndrome,” Hamilton said. “It’s a disease that I believe few know about, yet it’s becoming much more prevalent across the country. Leo’s parents asked if I could help them raise awareness by carrying this legislation, and I told them it would be my honor to do so.”
Mitochondrial diseases result from failures of the mitochondria, which create more than 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support growth. The disease primarily affects infants and children but adults can also be impacted. Defects in nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes are associated with hundreds of clinical disease phenotypes including anemia, dementia, hypertension, lymphoma, retinopathy, seizures, and neurodevelopment disorders.
In Leo’s case, he awoke with a seizure when he was nine months old, and they continued as he was airlifted to the hospital. Eventually he lost all muscle control and his digestive system began to fail. Three months later, after being unable to eat, talk or move due to this horrific mitochondrial condition, Leo passed away.
Hamilton said tens of thousands of children currently suffer from mitochondrial disease.
“No one can understand just how important this resolution is to Leo’s family,” Hamilton said. “Passing this legislation is the least we can do not only to help ease their pain, but to help raise awareness of this terrible disease.”
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