Word: cancer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...instance, when members of the Westboro Baptist Church appeared in Cambridge last month, almost 400 protestors greeted them. The students who confronted the WBC had the best of intentions: They meant to show their opposition to a despicable group. Nevertheless, the WBC fed off the publicity like a cancer. It should have been ignored. But these students’ desire to show that they were better than these bigots proved too powerful to ignore...
That's the strategy that Voltarelli's team tested. First, they carefully extracted a population of immune stem cells from the bone marrow of each diabetes patient. Then each person was treated with radiation, similar to the regimen that cancer patients receive, in order to destroy the immune system. Afterward, each patient received his own stem cells back by injection. The scientists traced blood levels of a protein, C-peptide, that beta cells produce, in order to confirm that whatever remaining beta cells the patient had were now able to grow again and repopulate the pancreas - and produce insulin. Sure...
...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...
...Screening for breast cancer susceptibility is advancement in the same direction. The previous legal boundaries for appropriate screening (a 90-100 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...