Down's Symptoms May Be Treatable In the Womb

missb writes "US researchers have found that prenatal treatment for Down syndrome works in mice. This raises the possibility that a pregnant woman who knows her unborn child has Down syndrome might be able to forestall some of the symptoms before giving birth. When fetal mouse pups that had a syndrome similar to Down's were treated with nerve-protecting chemicals, some of the developmental delays that are part of the condition — such as motor and sensory abilities — were removed."

Good news everyone!

US researchers have found that prenatal treatment for Down syndrome works in mice.

Today is a happy day for all mousekind!

Re:Good news everyone!

If only we knew this before, Mickey Mouse wouldn't have been such a retard.

Disabled does not mean "Better off Dead".

I'm shocked by how many people have said "it's cheaper just to abort". Since when did human life become so cheap? Or to those that have said "the child would rather have not been born than to be born with Down syndrome": how can you possibly speak for that child? Who are you to make that life and death decision on their behalf? Disabled does not mean "better off dead". Did nobody else see the article about Stephen Hawking on the front page today? This is about preventing or reducing a disability. It's about giving a person a better chance at life. Think of it this way: if you were going to be born with a malformed left arm, but it could be rectified in the womb, what would you choose? Death or a normal arm?

Re:Suck em out

Isn't an abortion a lot cheaper? I mean, with these genetic misfits being somehow a part of society, we could be doing some damage to our gene pool.

Erm, in case your remark isn't facetious: individuals with Down's Syndrome are typically sterile.

Re:Nice troll, but...

As a general rule their intellectual development will freeze at around the level of a 4th or 5th grader, but they are capable of the emotional maturity and ability to complete of domestic tasks to keep themselves alive. They can often do quite well in a sharehouse/hostel kind of environment with a part-time carer or health professional available to help them with complex tasks or issues. Complete independence is unlikely (although possible in some cases) but they're not helpless.

Chris Burke

A friend told me about a young man with Downs syndrome who is adept at arithmetic. He lives alone and works as an accountant. Not bad at all for someone with his condition.

Ever heard of Chris Burke [wikipedia.org]? Quite a lot of people would be jealous of accomplishments like that.

Re:

It's uncommon but they can reproduce.

I think the nature of Down's though is that they seldom outlive their parents - life expectancy is much lower.

Re:

I think the point of this is more in figuring out how to, step by step, intercept and prevent the syndrome entirely.

Sure, abortion prevents it as well. But the option to defeat the syndrome during development and not have it expressed at all in a living person would be better.

Re:

> So what you're saying is, it might be easier when the body consists of fewer cells?

It will be easier but still impossible. You would have to remove a complete choromose from every cell in the body. We cannot even remove a single chromosome from a cell, by the time it is possible to diagnose downs syndrome, there are millions/billions of cells already. Even if such a treatment were possible (and I daresay this will not happen during our lifetimes), it would have all kinds of risks, and it would probably

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

The people I know with disabilities, particularly mental ones, are generally happier than the rest of us.
Have you ever spent time with someone with Down's Syndrome, severe Autism, ...?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

I have spent quite a lot of time with autists (worked at a school for disabled children), and they are generally not happy people. (By pointing that out I am not trying to support the gp's point!)
You're right about people with Down's syndrome though.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

Then perhaps the solution for a perfectly happy society is to lobotimize ourselves, become completely dependent on our caregivers, and die at thirty.

Wait, isn't that Logan's Run?

Also

Shooting people in the head means they won't get cancer!

I'm not sure what your experience is but I've met and known quite a few people with Downs Syndrome who seemed happy. Certainly as happy as the rest of us at any rate.

It seems rather ridiculous to assume their lives aren't worth living. What next, deciding a childs life isn't going to be worth it because they aren't as sexy as Hugh Jackman or hung like Ron Jeremy?

Re:Also

If being hung like Ron Jeremy meant I had to look like Ron Jeremy, I'd probably pass.

Re:Also

What next, deciding a childs life isn't going to be worth it because they aren't as sexy as Hugh Jackman or hung like Ron Jeremy?

You mean, you aren't? And yet you keep pressing on everyday, you brave little soldier...

Apparently, the Eugenics Movement lives

There's already a treatment guaranteed to prevent the expression of these symptoms: abortion.

I know I'm violating Godwin's Law here, but in this case, to hell with Godwin. Nice answer there, Mein Heir; tell us, what are your exacting standards for the rest of humanity? Who else gets the axe in your perfect world?

Who the hell are you to tell people what kind of contribution they can make in this world? Who the hell are you to determine who gets to live and who has to die without even a chance for life? I've never in my 40 years met a family that regretted their Downs child. I've never met a family t

Re:Apparently, the Eugenics Movement lives

What you've never met isn't people who regretted their childs. That is actually extremely common. What you have never met, is people who, in this polically correct society (and in other society that has similar levels of peer pressure), will admit to it, even to their closest confidents.

Considering your stance on the matter, which you seem to hold pretty dear from the wording you use (and you are fully entitled to it, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything), I doubt anyone would EVER dare tell you that they regretted their child, down's syndrom or not.

To give a different point of view, at the risk of getting flamed to hell and beyond, I really, really despise kids (don't worrie, I'll never have to make my significant other go through an abortion... snip snip and all, thats all taken care of). Like, really, REALLY hate kids. Everyone around me knows my stance on this. Because of this, I had a LOT of mothers and families tell me in secret how they wish they never had their kids. In certain cases, that they didn't even love them, but that they still did what they could so it wouldn't show. None of those were disabled child's families, either. And to make things clear, I don't live in a ghetto, and the people I'm talking about came from all kinds of families, from poor to rich, etc.

Only in Wonderland does all families consider their kids blessings, ESPECIALLY kids with issues. They may not admit it, they may WANT to love them. That doesn't mean they do.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

No, they can't. Everyone will do everything they can to stop them, they'll have long periods of trauma and depressions, if they miss they'll be put in a psychiatric hospital, and it may make things worse.

In this world, killing yourself is potentially harder than killing someone else.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

And to your solution I have another, if the kid really feels that way, there is an easy way: suicide.

So I can commit any atrocity I want as long as I give my victims the option of suicide to escape it?

Suicide is actually a terrible thing, even (especially?) for those who commit it. I don't think it's humane to say "Oh, you don't like the life we forced you to have or the world we forced you to live in? Kill yourself!". Actually, I think you're sick.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

maybe that is because they don't fully understand what they are missing, or just can't compehend it ?

I tend to assume that's why most of the people who aren't me haven't committed suicide. Slashdot trolls: the reason 59th trimester abortions should be legal.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

maybe that is because they don't fully understand what they are missing, or just can't compehend it ?

did you everthink of that.

They? What about you? I'm sure there's plenty you don't comprehend and are missing but don't know about.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

There is a continuous spectrum of cognitive capacity from near-vegetative to super-genius. Are we supposed to decide people's right to live based on arbitrary cut-offs on tests that we already know aren't perfectly valid? Absolutely not.

I really wish that my advisor would get her study submitted and published so that I could link to it here. (I'm sure she says the same thing about my own as well).

She's been doing early intervention with DS kids much earlier than ever before and providing high-tech means for them to communicate. After 5 years the kids are entering school on-par with their peers.

It is starting to look like mental retardation is a secondary symptom of DS, not a primary one. DS results in SPEECH disability, which messes up language development, which in turn screws up cognitive development. We've been providing an alternative, non-speech, means to communication development and it has led to surprisingly positive results in cognition development. (This falls into the category of "manuscript in progress" and hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, but I expect it to pass that hurdle in the next year or so).
Here is a description of the study methods.
http://www.aac-rerc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=152 [aac-rerc.com]
It's in Breeze. Sorry about that.

So, if it becomes known that Down syndrome only causes mental retardation when we fail to provide the right care and education, do you still think that abortion/eugenics is an appropriate treatment???

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

Wish I had mod points. You deserve some for being absolutely right while likely getting flamed into oblivion for it.

The GP is not right. All the things he mentions are relative, not absolute. People with DS can lead happy, fulfilling lives, and that's really the only thing that matters in this case. Before you judge the value of the lives of people with DS you should ask them whether they would have preferred not to have been born.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

Can? Sure.

Need to? Hell no, not in a world overpopulated by a factor of 2-5.

I don't have to ask anyone to judge their value in that context. At its coldest, its not hard to judge absolute value -- what is the benefit a birth will bring to society versus its cost.

If you want to talk relative vs absolute, there's a pretty significant percentage of people who end up in the red on that count.

If society has a certain amount of resources available to support the raising of the next generation, and the birth of the child in question will use the resources that otherwise could've been used for ten children without fundamental genetic defects, that's a pretty absolute value judgment as well.

The GP is absolutely right -- we as a society (particularly in the US) fail miserably at making rational judgment calls because of a misguided and unjustified assignment of irrational amounts of value to a bunch of cells.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

I don't have to ask anyone to judge their value in that context. At its coldest, its not hard to judge absolute value -- what is the benefit a birth will bring to society versus its cost.

If you want to talk relative vs absolute, there's a pretty significant percentage of people who end up in the red on that count.

How do you measure the benefits and costs to society? In dollar value? That would be pretty much impossible, certainly in the case of benefits. How can you quanify the benefits a person brings?

If society has a certain amount of resources available to support the raising of the next generation, and the birth of the child in question will use the resources that otherwise could've been used for ten children without fundamental genetic defects, that's a pretty absolute value judgment as well.

I don't agree with this. A society is about people giving and taking. Different people give and take different amounts and this varies with their environment and the stage of their life. I know of people with DS who definately contribute more than they take. Converesly I know of a lot of people who take considerably more than they give. I wouldn't advocate killing people on that basis.

Incidentally I'd be interested to know how you get the over-populated by 2-5 figure. I'm not arguing with it, I'm just curious.