Word: brca1
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...Earlier this year, in vitro fertilization was used to screen for a faulty BRCA1 gene that increases one’s susceptibility for breast cancer, while researchers at Cambridge University claim that a pre-natal screening for autism will soon be possible. Although both steps seem to represent an innocuous effort to prevent devastating medical conditions, the extended use of pre-natal screening raises many serious ethical questions...
...Meanwhile, pre-natal screening against cancer susceptibility presents deviation from the standard practice, as screening has previously only been used against diseases with a 90-100 percent chance of causing a disease that affect the child from birth. BRCA1, however, only raises the risk of the disease from 50-85 percent, while breast cancer itself does not affect the child from birth and has the potential to be cured...
...percent chance of the disease affecting the child) were violated in this case. As advances allow us to screen for smaller and smaller susceptibilities, firm boundaries must be drawn to keep science in check. Policymakers must consider the range of genes that cause the same level of susceptibility as BRCA1 and evaluate the implications of permitting such extensive use of pre-natal screening. Ultimately, a level of susceptibility for which it is permissible to screen must be determined, and this level should remain fixed. Such limits may be arbitrary and may eventually deny screening for BRCA1, but, at some point...
...factor - in both women and men - is family history. By the time Place was diagnosed, for example, two of his female relatives had died of breast cancer and a third of ovarian cancer. Although there are certainly several genes that contribute to breast cancer, mutations in two of them - BRCA1 and BRCA2 - are known to increase the odds of both breast and ovarian cancers. So while most men might never even meet a man with breast cancer, those who have several relatives diagnosed with it should be on the lookout for signs of their own breast tumors. Studies suggest that...
...Genes can cause problems of their own - particularly for Asians. Fewer than 10% of American women with breast cancer have a form caused by an inherited mutation in their genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, which makes them three to seven times as likely to fall ill. BRCA-related breast cancer is more apt to hit before age 50 and to recur in the second breast. In a 2002 study, University of Toronto doctors concluded that because of the relatively early age of Asian breast-cancer patients and because hereditary cancers disproportionately occur in young women, "a high proportion of breast...