What is the flaw in my reasoning?
It seems as though we could practically wipe out MD, as well as other other genetic diseases, practically within a generation.
If everyone knowing that they were a carrier opted not to have children, then the only carriers would then be a) people of unknown/uncertain parentage, and b) spontaneous genetic mutations.
What point am I missing?
The discussion of this will probably wind up in Great Debates, but here’s a small observation:
First off, if I recall my genetics correctly, the chances of any genetic diseases being passed on are neveer 100%, because even if both parents carry the dominant gene, there’s a recessive gene hiding somewhere beneath that could unite with the other hidden gene and not pass on the trait. Therefore, it’s never certain that a child will inherit any trait.
Secondly, we don’t yet know all the genes that influence every genetic trait. So it’s entirely possible that while we may have identified one gene that passes a trait along, there may be other genes that could, as well.
Individuals may decide not to have children because a problem may run in their families, but there are no guarantees that a particular pregnancy will or won’t result in a genetic problem.
In essence, you’re advocating a “better safe than sorry” policy. Which other genetic predispositions should we also wipe out under this policy? Breast cancer? Juvenile diabetes? Brown eyes?
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
Well, the Orthodox Jewish community has had such an idea for a while.
Tay-Sachs disease is a genetic malady that exists in the Ashenazic (Eastern European) Jewish community. A child can only get it if both of his parents have the gene. There is an organization called Dor Yeshorim which has run an extensive campaign in Yeshivas and girls’ schools to have all Jewish teenagers tested for this gene and registered with their organization. When a shadchan (matchmaker) wants to set up a boy and girl, the pair will usually submit their numbers to Dor Yeshorim to see if the pair could possibly conceive a Tay-Sachs child. If the answer is yes, then the two will be informed, and they can decide, before they date and before any emotional capital is invested in a relationship, not to go out with one another. (It is up to the couple to make their own decision; there is no one forcing them not to go out…but of course, it is strongly discouraged.)
The program was expanded to include testing for cystic fibrosis and Gaucher’s disease as well.
If there is a test that can detect the MD gene, then such a campaign to wipe it out is certainly feasible.
Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@kozmo.com
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
The point you’re missing is that people don’t want to be told they can’t have children because there is a chance that said children might have a genetic disease, or be a carrier of said disease. Even couples who know that there is an almost 100% chance that their child will have a genetic based illness would still want the option to have the child.
Well, a lot of people don’t know even know they have muscular dystrophy. Symptoms are invisible or so mild they think they’re “normal” or that they’re just naturally weaker than other people. My father never knew until he had already had children. Back then, even in the 70’s, technology was too primitive to always make a positive diagnosis. And no one else in the family had it; he was a “new mutant.” So throughout his childhood and early adulthood he simply thought he’d taken too many falls on the farm or had been kicked by too many cows. He didn’t realize his weaknesses were caused by genetics until they showed up in me and my sister. Only then did doctors recognize the pattern and make a diagnosis. And even then, the diagnosis was only made by running us through a gammut of physical test. Genetic testing for our kind of MD wasn’t even available until 2 years ago.
I recently received an e-mail from a distraught woman asking for advice because her 46 year old husband was diagnosed only just a couple weeks ago and now she’s fearing for her sons’ health.
So what do you propose we do for about people who don’t realize they have these hidden gremlins in their genes? Round up the entire population up for genetic testing and, for positive results, compulsory sterilization?
(Just last weekend I assured my mother I was glad to be born so :p)
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
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I think, also, that muscular distrophy has a fairly high rate of spontaneous occurance, or new mutation, so even if we did completely wipe out the gene responsible, it could pop up again. I had a cousin who had it, but there’s no trace of it elsewhere in my family, and my extended family is large and well-documented enough that the doctors are pretty sure that if it was genetic, in this case, then they would have seen others.
“There are only two things that are infinite: The Universe, and human stupidity-- and I’m not sure about the Universe”
–A. Einstein