Mary Chapman

It had been a few years since Sean Baumstark, who is living with Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), came up with the idea of a cruise for people who, like him, have a rare disease. It wasn’t easy, coordinating it all. And it wasn’t until everyone was finally aboard, meeting up on the deck, that Baumstark could exhale. “We were just hanging out, taking selfies, laughing, listening to music, sharing stories, and staring at the ocean,” says Baumstark, who is cohost of Two Disabled Dudes.

1 Introduction Anthropogenic waste fundamentally alters the chemistry of Earth's ecosystems (UNEP 2020). Processes associated with mining, coal combustion, hydraulic fracturing, and nuclear fission generate byproducts that contain metals, metalloids, and radionuclides, many of which occur naturally in trace amounts but are released to the environment in excess concentrations or new forms (Deonarine et al. 2023; Dwivedi et al. 2022; Estrada and Bhamidimarri 2016).

In 2007, 8-year-old Isabel Maugee began having gait problems while playing soccer. Caroline Maugee and her husband, Eric, thought their daughter had knock knees. A year later, the couple was shocked when Isabel and her twin brother, Christian, were diagnosed with a disease they had never heard of — Friedreich’s ataxia (FA). And then they learned that they, as well as their oldest son, Stephane Maugee, 28, were carriers of the hereditary disease that causes loss of muscle control and coordination.