Bree Walker an ambassador for Ectrodactyly

November 16, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: Baby Health, News

Bree Walker is a successful woman.

In the fourth season premiere of Nip/Tuck Bree Walker played a real estate agent counseling parents expecting a child with ectrodactyly.

She’s been seen in Carnivàle, a HBO television series about a Depression-era carnival, Bree requested, created, auditioned, and won the role of Sabina, The Scorpion Lady.

Bree has also appeared on Larry King Live and was the News anchor for KCBS news in Los Angeles, a position she held for over two decades.

Bree Walker has also been an ambassador for a rare fetal deformity, one that she lives with herself.

Ectrodactyly, referred to commonly as lobster claw syndrome is a result of defects in or damage to a developing fetus where where the middle digit is missing from the hand, and the hand is cleft where the metacarpal of the finger should be. This split gives the hands the appearance of lobster claws.

Ectrodactyly on the hand of a one-year old baby

Hiding her condition with a pair of glove-like prosthetic hands early in her career, she has since gone public and has continued to have a successful broadcasting and acting career.

Both her children inherited her condition, though they have undergone more than a dozen surgeries each to unfuse their fingers. Speaking out against critics, “My children have every right to walk this planet,” she said.

In her interview with Larry King, Bree shared an amusing story:

She said:” I want to tell you a funny story about that. I was on a subway in New York, my very first time, when I was working there in radio. I was 22 years old.

“And I was learning the subway system. And I was sitting opposite a woman who was staring at me. And I got just a little bit peeved at some point and gave her that look like, “What are you looking at, lady?”

And she said to me, she said, “Oh, I’m sorry. But you know, it’s such — it’s such a tragedy, such a pretty girl but such ugly hands.”

“So I said, “You think I should have been born ugly, too, huh?”"

Bree continues to champion disability rights as an activist and is heavily involved with political reform.