The bone disease in Unbreakable

Factual Questions
1

MsRobyn and I saw “Unbreakable” last night. I am trying to write an article on it, but I can’t for the life of me remember the bone disease Sam Jackson’s character “Elijah White” had. I remember (duh) it had the root “osteo” and that there were four types, Jackson’s character having type 1. It had something to do with a protein his body didn’t make very well, which caused his bones to have much lower density than a normal person’s.

Anyone remember the name of the disease? IMDB.com didn’t have anything on it, which doesn’t surprise me as some of the plot summaries submitted aren’t even accurate. Thanks for any help y’all can give me on this.

2

Osteogenesis imperfecta

3

Google is our friend.

Here is the homepage for the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation.

Robin, who thought the scene where Samuel L. Jackson falls down the stairs was the grossest thing she’s seen in a while.

4

From http://oif.org/tier1/abuse.htm:

“Evaluation by a clinical geneticist who has experience with all types of OI–mild, moderate and severe–can be helpful.”

There’s also nothing about how the production of a protein is what causes the disease, which I distinctly remember from the movie. So we have two options (at least):

  1. The movie people didn’t do their research.

  2. It ain’t OIF (which is latin for, basically, “my bones don’t grow right”).

5

It is, indeed osteogenesis imperfecta

http://www.oif.org/tier2/fastfact.htm

And from http://www.oif.org/tier2/genetics.htm :

The protein, it seems, is collagen. There’s a lot, a LOT more information on the site. It’s a very interesting disease, if you’re interested in such things…

6

I’ll try that again, sans colon.

http://www.oif.org/tier2/genetics.htm