Word: colon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...stocks are doing O.K., but my gene portfolio took a big hit recently. Doctors at Johns Hopkins announced that they have discovered a genetic mutation in Ashkenazi Jews that doubles the risk of colon cancer. Ashkenazi Jews are those with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. That covers most Jewish Americans, including me. Only 6% of Ashkenazi Jews are thought to carry the defective gene, but that's enough to make it, according to the New York Times, "the most common known cancer gene in a particular population." And colon cancer is just one disease for which Ashkenazi Jews seem...
...different mental capabilities that people have in varying amounts, and that these capabilities can be strongly affected by environmental factors--leaves room for a large genetic component. Few Ashkenazi Jews, I suspect, would trade their genes for a random draw from the gene pool, whatever their fear of colon cancer and whatever they may have felt (and said) about Charles Murray, notorious co-author of The Bell Curve...
...technician finds in a test tube of your blood. The proper lesson is that a lot of the sorting and rewarding in society works essentially the same way. And whatever upsets you about genetic testing ought to apply to matters larger than a slightly increased chance of getting colon cancer...
KNOW THY GENES Researchers have found a genetic defect present in roughly 6% of Ashkenazi Jews that doubles the risk of colon cancer. The mutation can be picked up with a $200 blood test. And if cancer is detected early, the likelihood of a cure is high...
Sunday morning at St. Louis' Kingshighway Baptist Church could pass for a slow day at a retirement-home chapel. The dwindling flock is a sea of white hair and bald heads. And the service, which kicks off with prayers for a colon-cancer victim, is heavy with talk of illness and grandchildren. But as a grandfather of 10 gets up to testify, an unexpectedly joyful noise seeps through the floorboards--the sounds of salsa-inflected guitars and tambourines. The musicians, practicing in a basement fellowship room, belong to a fast-growing young Latino Baptist congregation that has shared Kingshighway...