Baby To Be Born Without the Gene For Breast Cancer 259
manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"
Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
For once, I'll recommend to RTFA first before commenting. It's a tough choice.
On one hand, it's great that a family with such a tough hereditary problem can know that their kids and grand-kids won't be affected. On the other hand, I'm just so scared of the consequences: we are playing with nature and past experience shows that we usually don't fully understand the long-term consequences of our actions. We usually regret such experiments.
But who am I to tell this family to go ahead and accept brest cancer? Can you look them in the eye and say "choose cancer"?
--
fairsoftware.net [fairsoftware.net] -- Software Bill Of Rights: transparency, equal rights and revenue sharing
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
nature played with us first, it's only fair that we reciprocate.
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But nature has a lot longer than us to retaliate. It's like that creepy guy in the office you pissed off a few years ago - he's just waiting for the right time to get you back.
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You know what goes best with a drink? A side of revenge. Just saying.
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To add a bit of my own to this, we require nature to survive, nature does not require us. That's not to say that we cannot play by the same rules in order to game the system so-to-speak. But if we should end up failing, nature will just keep on going.
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Best advice from the article: "In addition, we must not forget the embryos which were discarded because they did carry the gene."
now the part that will unfortunately get me modded flamebait:
The easiest way to make certain someone never gets a disease is to kill them before the get it. There are plenty of children needing adoption for this entire scenario to have been avoided
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Plenty of children, but not plenty of infants. There's a lack of babies, if you want to adopt and take less than a few years you're limited to grown children. Many of them have emotional or physical handicaps and severe mental issues. Anyone who adopts one gets high praise from me, but I don't fault anyone who doesn't have the courage to do so. And most people want a baby that they can raise from birth, not someone already halfway grown.
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Funny)
I want to adopt a 25/yr old w/ his own apartment and steady job.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Funny)
I've already adopted a 25/yr w/her own apartment and a steady job. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Trust me.
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according to national adoption statistics 36% of all children up for adoption are under age 3
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, in Ancient Roman society, babies were never adopted...only teens. Why? Because when children reach their teens, you can know their character and if you want to trust them with carrying on your inheritance and your family name. With babies, you never know they'll turn up. In the nature versus nurture forming of character, you might provide good nurture but still turn out bad because of nature (aka genetics).
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Ancient Roman society used adoption much differently- it was about picking one's heirs for property and titles. In modern society, it's about an alternative to having your own children and while they may inherit, it's not a key consideration.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Conversely, DNA can't be everything. I have a set of identical-twin cousins who are excellent examples. Their mother left them when they were young (somewhere between 4 and 6, I don't remember too well as I wasn't that old, either), leaving their father (my dad's brother) to raise them (and get remarried and have a slew of kids with his new wife, too). Anyway, one turned out as a risk-taker and gay, the other is neither. Same household, even same genes. There's gotta be more to it than that. (Of course, I'll get modded down for pointing out that genes also can't be the end-all and be-all of determining sexuality, either, since these two ARE identical twins and still ended up not having the same sexuality. Anecdotes != data, but this is simply a counter-example that seems to me to disprove that theory.)
Neither of the boys (well, they're over 18 now, so "men") are psychologically perfect (who is?), but they are definitely quite far apart in personality despite both same genes and same upbringing.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
only the embryos are no more a human than that egg you had for breakfast is a chicken
I disagree. Most of those eggs in the supermarket are unfertilized. A fertilized egg is an actual chicken. I just don't care about chickens as much as I do people. You can't point to any one spot in an embryo's development (except fertilization) and say "There. Now it is human." With that ambiguity, is it not better to err on the side of caution?
with the end result being people having some incurable genetic illness.
Are the majority of disabled individuals unhappy that they are alive? It's not our place to make that judgment for them.
whats ethical about allowing someone to die a horrible death from cancer when you could have most likely been prevented?
This isn't really prevention. Sure, the child that is born will have a reduced risk of breast cancer, but that is because they simply throw out the ones that don't meet their criteria. So instead of having a higher chance of dying from breast cancer, these rejects have a guarantee of dying because their chances are higher than the one that was selected.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't point to any one spot in an embryo's development (except fertilization) and say "There. Now it is human." With that ambiguity, is it not better to err on the side of caution?
FTFA:
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves taking a cell from an embryo at the eight-cell stage of development, when it is around three-days old, and testing it.
I can certainly point to this spot and say "There. It is not yet human." It is eight cells. What counts is a nervous system and perhaps some sort of brain function. We can surely agree on some sort of "fuzzy" criteria that say "if it looks like it could feel pain or might be self-aware, don't kill it." I think this stage is safely below any such possible criteria.
I understand wanting to protect life, but saying that even the potential for life must be protected can be taken to absurd extremes -- as religious proscription of contraceptive measures has shown -- and is really just absurd in itself.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
What counts is a nervous system and perhaps some sort of brain function
So 5 minutes before we could identify brain function, it isn't alive? The boundary is just too fuzzy. An embryo hasn't developed a great deal compared to where it was a hour beforehand.
I understand wanting to protect life, but saying that even the potential for life must be protected can be taken to absurd extremes -- as religious proscription of contraceptive measures has shown -- and is really just absurd in itself.
I agree, potential for life != life. That's why I don't care one way or the other about preventive contraception. But I am not of the opinion that a fertilized egg is merely "potential life".
I feel that conception is a good point because it is the single most defining instant of a human's development. The eggs and sperm won't grow into an adult human on their own, no matter how much nutrients you give them. An embryo will.
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But I am not of the opinion that a fertilized egg is merely "potential life".
But it is just potential life. See below.
I feel that conception is a good point because it is the single most defining instant of a human's development. The eggs and sperm won't grow into an adult human on their own, no matter how much nutrients you give them. An embryo will.
No it won't. First, the embryo needs to be free of genetic defects. Second, the embryo needs to be implanted. Thus embryos are still just "potential life."
The point of conception as a defining moment of human-hood is not the best approach, unless you're willing to define any egg+diploid human DNA = human.
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It's living, growing human cells. In my books that counts as a human life. I disagree with the entire notion of potential life, it's either alive or it's dead.
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So is the Hela cell-line that's used in most laboratories. Would you consider that human?
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No it won't. First, the embryo needs to be free of genetic defects.
I assume you mean "free of extensive genetic defects". If they truly were free of defects, we wouldn't have hereditary genetic diseases.
I would still count it as human, although I would not be surprised if it miscarries very soon (maybe even before the first cell division?). Unfortunate, but it happens. The important thing is that it died because there was nothing we could do to prevent it, not because someone decided to kill it.
Second, the embryo needs to be implanted.
Is malaria part of the body, or a separate organism? Tapeworm? Just because an
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So 5 minutes before we could identify brain function, it isn't alive?
This is beside the point. The issue isn't 5 minutes before, it's when there are only 8 cells. Just because the line might be fuzzy, doesn't mean that there is uncertainty at 8 cells. If you are that worried about getting it wrong, that argument works just as well before conception.
I feel that conception is a good point because it is the single most defining instant of a human's development.
What does "most defining instant" mean?
The eggs an
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I consider something "human" when a brain capable of becoming a human brain has fired off its first thought.
That's cute. Totally aside from all the questions of how you define "first thought"...hows about you look to what every single modern biologist will say, namely, "DNA determines species". At the point of conception, the zygote is genetically/biologically a human. He/She is classified/identified as a male/female individual of the species homo sapiens (that means "human" in Grown-Up science-talk). For everyone who paid attention in high-school science, though, the debate is about "life" and "when" it should
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At the point of conception, you have a single-celled organism. It's characteristics:
- It regulates its internal environment.
- It is composed of one or more cells.
- It consumes energy and creates cellular components.
- It grows.
- It responds to stimuli.
- It reproduces new cells.
These are the characteristics we use to define a single-celled bacteria as life. So it seems that at conception we can safely assume that the zygote is life.
Other characteristic:
- It has a unique set of DNA.
This is the characteristic w
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"At this point, you are asserting that this living creature is not human. You believe it will be human, but that it isn't at this point, and that's the justification for killing it."
Nice strawman.
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Now for the really tough choice:
Suppose science is able to clone a healthy baby from wart tissue. (Bear with me here) The cells are undeniably human and since it would then be shown that a live human can be derived from it, would you then conclude that to discard removed warts is murder?
Embryos can't live outside of a uteris or other life-sustaining environment. Neither can removed warts.
BTM
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You are killing a subset of the subject, but not causing permanent damage to the subject. In order to be a parallel argument, you need to convince me that the tissue is a living creature that is distinctly different than the original subject.
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What do you think about throwing away sperm or egg?
Is it only when they are combined into a potential human that disposal becomes contentious? If so, in the PP's world, *every* wart has the potential to be a human. How -then- is disposal of a wart different from disposal of a fertilized egg?
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Embryos can't live outside of a uteris or other life-sustaining environment. Neither can removed warts.
Billy the Mountain [slashdot.org] can't live outside of an atmosphere or other life-sustaining environment. Neither can warts.
Congratulations, you've just shown that life needs things to survive, and that certain parts of living organisms will die if removed from them... For your next stunning demonstration you could explain to us all how a fetus is "totally tiny and so are fleas" and that they both require the blood of another organism to survive, therefore...OMG they're the totally the same!11!!1! thus proving once a
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Some questions:
Was it right or wrong to let Terri Schaivo die?
Is it right or wrong to abort a pregnancy when it is known that the baby will die in horrible agony shortly after birth?
Is it murder when a woman's body flushes out a fertilized egg?
Is it murder when a geneticist fails to implant a fertilized egg into a woman's uterus?
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These are the characteristics we use to define a single-celled bacteria as life. So it seems that at conception we can safely assume that the zygote is life.
Of course it is living - that doesn't mean that it's unethical to end that life. Also note that sperm and egg cells are living.
So at least one of these must be true:
* It's wrong to kill bacteria.
* Millions of living creatures are murdered when someone has sex.
* Sperm and egg cells aren't alive, and unliving things magically turn into living things when
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I disagree. Most of those eggs in the supermarket are unfertilized. A fertilized egg is an actual chicken. I just don't care about chickens as much as I do people. You can't point to any one spot in an embryo's development (except fertilization) and say "There. Now it is human." With that ambiguity, is it not better to err on the side of caution?
That's called the argument of the beard, and is a fallacy.
Quoting:
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LogArgBeard.html [web.uvic.ca]
This is a paradoxical argument which derives from the impossibility of answering the question "How many hairs does a man have to grow before he has a beard?" Since there is no specific number at which an unsightly clump of hairs becomes a beard, the argument is that no useful distinction can be made between a clean-shaven man and Santa Claus.
Another way of expressing the fallacy is in the argume
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And your friend is no more human than the chicken you just ate is a chicken. You don't go eating people, though. We have different rules for animals and people.
Note that for the record I'm both pro-choice and love a good parma. I just don't agree with your argument.
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It's okay. Cancer of the mutant breast can be easily eradicated with mutant X-rays.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
All that happened was screening. They didn't screw with nature, they just took a peek to see whether the embryo had the gene or not.
That's all they did in GATTACA too. Screen embryos for (un)desirable genetic traits, and pick which one to implant. That's exactly what they did here.
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They also gave addition features. However that's not the bad part about GATTACA.
It's a story about society, and what it became.
Whether it's people with genetic changes, or blue hair, or aliens. makes no difference. it's a story about discrimination.
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
They also gave addition features.
I just re-watched the movie a few days ago, and they did not perform any genetic manipulation. They merely screened thousands and thousands of embryos and selected the "best" one. That's part of what's so fascinating about the movie, that the only sci-fi involved is the extremely fast and predictive genetic tests.
Well, and manned missions to Titan, but you get my point.
Whether it's people with genetic changes, or blue hair, or aliens. makes no difference. it's a story about discrimination.
That's absolutely true. I'm just pointing out the same issues are present here. Not with this case directly. But as it becomes cheaper, easier, more reliable, and we can screen for more things. First it only made sense for cases where there was a guarantee of a serious inherited disease. Now it's used for a case where there's a very high risk of a serious disease associated with the gene. Next will be lower risk factors, or diseases with less serious consequences. Past that, we'll have to start making the same hard choices about how we want to proceed that the society of GATTACA had to make before it crystallized into the form in the movie.
Don't get me wrong, there's no way I could say that this particular case is anything but an amazing advance of medicine and a good thing. But that's how tough ethical choices begin, isn't it.
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And that IS screwing with nature.
Okay...
Look, if we all screened all of our embryos to hold up to our popular standards of beauty...
Do you see what you did there? You just went off the rails. This paragraph has nothing to do with the first. :D
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GATTACA is a movie, not real life. It is worth thinking about, sure, but it should not be taken as a gospel prediction of what must happen if certain actions are taken.
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Yeah, if that was my point, that'd be pretty ironic, since a major theme of the movie is the folly of determinism.
But it's not. My point is that we do (or rather will) have to consider the same ethical questions the movie raises, and it doesn't require genetic manipulation.
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But it's not. My point is that we do (or rather will) have to consider the same ethical questions the movie raises, and it doesn't require genetic manipulation.
Do you really believe genetic screening hasn't been going on for years? Amniocentesis and the ability to diagnose downs syndrome in a fetus has been around for 40 years. I don't know how long it's been a routine procedure, but I'd guess 20 years or more.
The movie is still a movie, and I really don't think the "issues" that it raises are going to be
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That's all they did in GATTACA too.
We need a new acronym: WTFM (or RTFB?)
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Yes, and apparently you need to WTFM.
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That's all they did in GATTACA too.
Yes, and apparently you need to WTFM.
Again? It wasn't that good. Will check IMDB instead: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/plotsummary [imdb.com] :
Vincent is one of the last "natural" babies born into a sterile, genetically-enhanced world.
In "the not-too-distant" future, where genetic engineering of humans is common ...
Re:Tough choice (Score:5, Insightful)
GATTACA always bothered me since you don't see Vincent's success, only that he was lucky enough to trick the system. Despite the movie's message, in the end he wasn't fit enough to go, his heart wasn't strong enough as shown in the treadmill scene, and his eyesight was a serious liability. I always had to wonder at the end of the movie when he's going into space if his heart gave out in the second month, or he lost a contact or some other thing that they tried to screen for that cost the success of the mission and potentially the lives of the other members of the crew.
I know the message the movie was giving, and in terms of his relationship with what's her face it seemed to be more poignant, but I couldn't help think that his actions were all hubris and were a huge risk to the mission and its crew.
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"GATTACA always bothered me since you don't see Vincent's success, only that he was lucky enough to trick the system."
So he was good enough to circumvent a system designed to prevent people like him from acheiving success and you say he wasn't successful? Just what exactly is your definition of success?!?
"I know the message the movie was giving, .... but I couldn't help think that his actions were all hubris and were a huge risk to the mission and its crew."
And what happened if one of those "qualified" peo
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Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Insightful)
So he was good enough to circumvent a system designed to prevent people like him from acheiving success and you say he wasn't successful? Just what exactly is your definition of success?!?
Being able to fake your way through a qualifications system does not mean you are going to be able to fake your way through the end job. If I forge a law school diploma it doesn't mean I'm suddenly magically qualified to be a lawyer.
One of the points of the movie that genes are not the sum of the person.
Except that more and more we are learning that they are. A good movie does not refute science just because it's entertaining.
What future are people planning for? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's more along the lines that even if you know about someone's genes you still can't predict their life. It's akin to predicting the future which we don't expect to be able to do.
To put it another way: if you don't know the future then how do you know what genes are important? perhaps in the upcoming unplanned world scenario the gene for determination and desire is more important than the one for perfect fitness?
If we plan too much and optimise too much then we are very vulnerable to risk.
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Insightful)
So he was good enough to circumvent a system designed to prevent people like him from acheiving success and you say he wasn't successful? Just what exactly is your definition of success?!?
Pulling a fast one on the system's selection process so that it selects a clearly inferior and inapt candidate for the task is not by any way a definition of success. The character succeeded in stealing the identity of a qualifiable candidate and evading the selection process. Yet, the story doesn't approach the part that really matters: the part where the character does indeed needs to put his genetic traits to the test. Sure, myopia is no biggie but cardiac problems that result in a life expectancy of 30.2 years sure can cause a bit of trouble in long space travels.
And what happened if one of those "qualified" people tripped and broke their neck, or made a bad decision that led to mission failure, or a faulty part on the craft killed them all, etc.
One of the points of the movie that genes are not the sum of the person.
That isn't the point. The point is that the genetic testing was put in place in order to eliminate needless problems that could be caused by health problems arising from genetic defects. Indeed a "qualified" astronaut could break his/her neck but so does the unqualified astronaut, which means it's irrelevant. The point is that the unqualified astronaut suffers from a genetic-based cardiac defect. What if his heart craps up on him in the middle of the trip to Titan? What else then? Should the mission be forced to nurse a corpse through the entire mission and be chronically and maybe critically sub-manned through the entire mission? That problem, which is a massive problem, could be avoided. By genetic testing. That the character violated through identity theft. That's the point.
Re:Tough choice (Score:4, Insightful)
"GATTACA always bothered me since you don't see Vincent's success, only that he was lucky enough to trick the system."
Actually, you see his success constantly-- he scores highest in the various orbital/piloting tests, impresses them with his work ethic, and so on. It's only the purely physical criteria that was a problem-- and note he does perform the physical tests at a high level (even though he's a wreck afterwards). He's even able to outswim his more 'perfect' brother-- and save his brother from drowning in the process.
So put it this way. Your ship is in trouble. Do you want a pilot who has never had to struggle a minute in his life nor faced a real challenge, or do you want a pilot with the tenacity to achieve even with the deck stacked against him?
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Despite the movie's message, in the end he wasn't fit enough to go, his heart wasn't strong enough as shown in the treadmill scene...
That wasn't his heart defect cropping up. That was him pushing himself farther than he could (he was running for a longer period of time than his fitness level should allow). He did this because he had assumed the identity of someone who was a genetic match to become a great athlete (although Jerome apparently didn't have the drive to achieve his potential). He didn't have a heart attack and need hospitalization, he was just completely and utterly out of breath. Notice he didn't have any problems with h
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Can you look them in the eye and say "choose cancer"?
No, no I can't. I can, however, look them in the eye and say that removing any amount of genetic material or replacing it can have unexpected results. I'm not a biologist of any sort but we still don't have a full understanding of the human genome. Mapping, sure, but we're largely ignorant of what everything does.
Assuming they can assure that this will only effect the cancer risk, then they should go for it.
I recall a study [discovermagazine.com] that removed what was thought of as "junk DNA" from mice. In which cas
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In which case, they were badly deformed and doomed from birth because that "junk" was actually acting as a decoy or buffer or something (I don't think they ever really figured it out) to absorb deformities.
There was an article on /. not so long ago about the discovery that the "junk" DNA, and even proteins attached to the DNA, were responsible for regulating gene expression and what proteins were synthesized by genes.
So it's possible that removing the junk wasn't so much like removing a buffer to mutation a
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Of course, in the article's case, they didn't remove anything. They screened out the embryos that had the undesirable gene. It's like the difference between buying a car with an automatic and trying to convert it to manual, versus only considering cars that come with manual transmissions when shopping.
I do think it's fascinating that so much of the "junk" DNA may actually do something useful. It'll be interesting to find out exactly what.
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You know what else can have unexpected results?
Birth.
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If you were to edit that segment of code, you cannot be certain (with today's knowledge) what impact that will have. The retrovirus method of inserting DNA caused a r
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It's not just breast cancer. People with a defined mutation have higher rates of ovarian and prostate cancers. I really don't see what the problem is. There have been hundreds of mutations found in the BRCA1 gene that are associated with an increase in cancer development. So the woman's child doesn't have a detected mutation. What's with all the fear-mongering?
Intelligent Design! (Score:2, Insightful)
(is it a boy or a girl?)
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Re:Intelligent Design! (Score:4, Informative)
However, those statistics are about breast cancer in general. Maybe someone with a medical background can enlighten us about the specific ratio of BRCA1.
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New how? (Score:5, Informative)
And os it begins... (Score:3, Insightful)
The first step is taken on the road to GATTACA.*
*
*A movie about children being screened for superior genes - and also the children who become "rejects" in society because they were naturally born with inferior genes. If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it. A great science story.
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"A great science fiction story."
Fixed it for you.
damn you (Score:5, Funny)
We need gene engineering like this (Score:2)
Otherwise, the robots will take over.
Re:We need gene engineering like this (Score:5, Funny)
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Parent poster is a robot, do not believe its lies!
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Sneaky bastards.
Not quite so straightforward (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not quite so straightforward (Score:5, Informative)
by knocking out BRCA that other, unintended consequences will result...
They are not knocking it out. They are selecting an embryo which has inherited the good (not known bad) copy of the BRCA gene.
hold the phone (Score:4, Informative)
"licensed this treatment"?
That is without a doubt one of the scariest things I've read lately.
Re:hold the phone (Score:4, Informative)
The HFEA is the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the UK government regulator of treatments than involve well, embryos.
They approve treatments that are reasonably safe and ethical; and deny approval for treatments that are unsafe or unethical.
The US has the FDA to do the exact same thing for other treatments. I honestly don't see how legal regulation to prevent free-for-all medical treatment where the layman has no idea whether a given treatment is safe* or not is a bad thing.
*For reasonable definitions of safe, there's no such thing as zero risk when dealing with medical treatments.
big deal (Score:3, Funny)
Most babies are born not wearing any jeans at all!
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The funny in your post is the word 'most'.
A gene, not THE gene (Score:2)
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However many other genes involved in breast cancer may still be present.
And most breast cancers are not due to hereditary causes.
Nice (Score:2)
Now a line of decedents will be healthier.
Bring on the high tech medicine!
I still want a replacement clone and a head transplant.
I want the body I had at 22.
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Eugenics (Score:2, Insightful)
No sex if you want to do it this way (Score:2)
One of the disadvantages of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD, which is what they used here) is that it requires implantation of a screened egg. That means all the lovely things that go with IVF [fertility] treatment -- drugs to synchronise your period with something a bit more predictable, in-vitro fertilisation, multiple embryos, and a few blood tests along the way.
If you want to make babies the usual way (i.e. by having sex), then you can't use this technique to screen for less desirable traits.
Mutations in BRCA1 are linked to breast cancer (Score:2, Informative)
Just to clarify the headline and summary, and as is pointed out in the quote from Dr. Alan Thornhill in the original article:
Mutations in BRCA1 are linked to breast cancer , not just having the BRCA1 gene itself. BRCA1 [nih.gov] is a critical tumor suppressor gene that helps maintain genomic integrity. Again, specific mutations in BRCA1 have been linked to breast cancer, not just "carrying the BRCA1 gene". Most of us carry the BRCA1 gene and it is expressed in a wide variety of tissues throughout our bodies. The
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Exactly! So, can we please stop using misleading phrases like "the gene for x"?
Re:No proof (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bloody SCREENING. They're not putting together genes for fuck's sake! And as for "no proof" thing, it's all about odds, i.e. going from "very likely to get cancer" to "about as likely as the general population".
God, bored people can be so full of shit, can't take a piece of good news without having to wave the Impending Doom stick.
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Well said.
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"No proof of not getting the cancer. "
Dude, seriously? No proof of not? You can't prove a negative.
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Well, you can prove that sqrt(2) is not rational.
Really, I think you want to say "You can't prove a scientific result/theory".
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I need to quit posting here whilst drinking.
Re: (Score:2)
Theorem 1: You can't prove a negative.
Postulare: You can't prove a negative.
By theorem 1...
QED!
Re: (Score:2)