Screening embryos for breast cancer makes you a NAZI!

[Kanastrous]

nitpick, I guess, but it doesn't appear that DNA has been completely figured out, yet, even today.

[Mayabird]

Touche', man, touche'.

Anyway, something I forgot to mention earlier: I wonder how much this procedure costs, especially compared to the costs of getting cancer or all the tests and operations to try to prevent the cancer. Even with a proper national health system (cheap shot) it's still going to require a lot of resources, not to mention lost time due to medical reasons plus emotional distress to themselves and everyone who cares about them, assuming they don't end up dying anyway. Do they honestly think it's better for a young child to lose a parent to cancer than to prevent all that pain from happening in the first place? I want to hunt one of these bastards down and tell them what it was like to be there and watch my father die. Well, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea, because if they did honestly think that his death was beautiful or good or something, I'd probably end up in jail afterward.

[Samuel]

Our capitalist system does not reward intelligence so much as it rewards naked ambition, moral "flexibility", and salesmanship.

Yeah, I remember a financial tape my dad showed me- rich dad, poor dad. The guy on the tape commented that the people who were the managers were the C students in school.

The sad thing is that a lot of the people who rant about the evils of genetic selection would turn around and mutter that a mentally retarded couple should not be having children, even though that is eugenics too. They just don't realize it. I've known people like this.

Wow. I don't normally get to see such a clear example of double think in action. They only see it wrong when people are changing voluntarily, but when they are forcing people to do it, it is okay...

That sounds familiar...

"The scientists forgot one thing- superior ability breeds superior ambition."
-Dr McCoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDboDUfbAe8

My only big problem with people doing more than just selecting or removing pre-existing traits is that I don't want rich idiots going off half-cocked for whatever genes are fashionable and making broken kids out of it. They might think it'd be great to make super-smart kids but then don't think about how much work it'll take to educate a kid with an IQ of 185, even assuming it's done right and doesn't unintentionally give them, let's say, a thousand times greater chance of being schizophrenic. (Yes, I'm actually going "think of the children!" here.)

It is only crazy if you want to protect them from the world and the evils of swearing or the opposite sex. When it comes to not making them come apart due to the fact we don't know how everything works is a perfectly valid concern.

[Junghalli]

Wow. I don't normally get to see such a clear example of double think in action. They only see it wrong when people are changing voluntarily, but when they are forcing people to do it, it is okay...

Not having kids doesn't involve evil science messing with the sacred DNA. That's just playing God.

[PainRack]

Yeah, I remember a financial tape my dad showed me- rich dad, poor dad. The guy on the tape commented that the people who were the managers were the C students in school.

Actually, Rich Dad and Poor Dad is the PRIME example of dishonesty, lying and salemanship. The author, kiwosaki is a heckler who made his career out of selling How to Get Rich books based on empty advice.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wow. I don't normally get to see such a clear example of double think in action. They only see it wrong when people are changing voluntarily, but when they are forcing people to do it, it is okay...

Not having kids doesn't involve evil science messing with the sacred DNA. That's just playing God.

Oh please. Mother does that anyway. Every ovulation cycle her body selects 1000 of the best follicles (those free from genetic mutations, yes, the ovaries can tell). From this 1 (in rare cases more) get fertilized. If there is a problem (deleterious mutation, error in gastrulation) it never implants. After implantation, there is a 20% chance of mom aborting the fetus, often due to some sort of genetic defect.
Playing God. Heh. if life starts at conception *french accent* God iz de greatest abortionist of zem awl

[Broomstick]

It's happy news. But let's take a closer look at the announcement, starting with the test "before conception." This baby was tested as an embryo in a dish. She was one of 11 such embryos made by injecting drugs in the mother to stimulate production of excess eggs, which were then fertilized with the father's sperm. Six of the embryos had the gene for breast cancer. Three more had "other abnormalities." All nine were "discarded." The other two were implanted, and one became this baby.

This neatly ignores the likelihood that the embryos with "other abnormalities" would have been naturally discarded, i.e. miscarried. In fact, as has been pointed out, a significant number of natural conceptions miscarry. There is already a biological testing mechanism of sorts in place.

And why is "discarded" in quotes? The were discarded. Destroyed if you prefer. Did this man think the Anti-Abortion Calvary was going to ride in and adopt these embryos?

In sum, at least six human embryos were made and then thrown away because they failed a test. .............. Henceforth, testing of IVF embryos to decide which will live or die is preconception. Don't fret about the six eggs we fertilized, rejected, and flushed in selecting this baby. They were never really conceived. In fact, they weren't embryos. According to Serhal, each was just "an affected cluster of cells."

Of course, this ignores that fact that in the Bad Old Days (which I remember) many people who knew they had genetic diseases in their families would simply not have children at all - meaning that many children would not have been conceived in the first place, or aborted. Ironically, having such a test can increase the likelihood of some people having children at all.

Two instances where this phenomena of "I won't take the chance - I won't have kids at all" are Tay Sachs and Huntington's Disease. In the case of Tay Sachs parents didn't want to go through watching a child die. Those with Huntington's Disease in the family couldn't know for sure until their post-reproductive years if they had the gene or not.

Second: "This little girl will not face the specter of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life." Why the word specter?

Because it's a really nasty-ass, disgusting, awful disease, even if you survive it.

Because the cancer was far from guaranteed. If the parents had conceived naturally, the child would have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the gene. If she got the gene, her risk of breast cancer would be 50 percent to 85 percent. So the IVF and testing were done to avoid not certain death, but a 25 percent to 45 percent chance of getting a disease that, even if it arose, might be cured.

MIGHT be cured. MIGHT. After a painful and miserable course of treatments and quite likely mutilating, disfiguring surgery. Then afterward always the fear of recurrence or having anothercancer. Of course, it's always easier to inflict suffering on others, douchebag.

And if it arose, when would that happen? "In her adult life," say Serhal.

Oh, right. It's OK when adults get cancer.

Embryo screening is advancing from guaranteed, fatal childhood disease to potential, survivable adult diseases.

If you inherit the gene and are looking at up to 85% risk of cancer in life I think the word "potential" isn't quite strong enough for the situation.

And breast cancer, while survivable in some cases, is only so with advanced, modern medicine. With infections and infections diseases it's held to be better to prevent the disease rather than cure it after it shows up - why would cancer be an exception?

Third: "The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter." The key word here is inflicting. Before this kind of embryo test (known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis), parents weren't held responsible for a bad roll of the genetic dice. If you had a 50 percent chance of passing along a disease and your child got it, that was a tragedy, not your fault.

Not true - if you had a known defect and continued to pop out kids society did frown on that and there was social pressure to not reproduce. People with visible inherited problems - dwarfism, say - were likewise pressured not to pass them on. If you had one child with Tay Sachs that was a tragedy. If you kept having them that was stupidity.

But with the advent of PGD, the equation has changed. Now you can eliminate your risk of transmitting the bad gene—and if you don't take that precaution, you're "inflicting" the consequences. In this way, today's embryo-screening option becomes tomorrow's obligation.

But the inconvenience and price of such testing makes it unlikely that this will become routine for all. Frankly, I can't see the argument for forcing parents to knowingly risk passing on a bad disease.

Fourth: "The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations." Lasting. Legacy. Eradication. Families. Generations. We're no longer talking about protecting an individual. We're talking about cleansing families forever.

Unless this guy can come up with a convincing argument why maintaining the BCA1 gene is good he's full of shit.

Even if your daughter doesn't get breast cancer from the gene, why burden her with the question of whether to test her own embryos for it? Why not make the decision for her, and for her daughters, and for their daughters?

What's the alternative? Generations of worry, increased medical screening, intervention, and suffering? How is that better.

In fact, why not spare everyone this burden?

Yes, why not spare all of humanity some worry and suffering.

The press release boasts that University College London doctors have already "applied this technology for avoiding transmission of cancer predispositions in a whole host of cancers," including cancers of the retina and bowel. Why allow anyone to inflict on her children the specter of such adult diseases?

This guy is ignorant - the retina cancer referred to is most likely retinoblastoma, which appear in infancy and is fatal until the eyes are removed. Even if they aren't, it causes permanent blindness so basically a parent is faced with either having a surgeon carve out their child's eyes or watching them die a painful death. Now, you can certainly have a good life despite blindness, but it's not normally seen as a positive. In any case, that's NOT an "adult disease"

Likewise, some of the colon cancers prevented by these techniques can strike very early - in the first half of the 20's. So.... technically "adult", yes, but young enough to really impact all the adult lifespan, interfere with reproduction, the alternative is typically removal of colon which can lead to other life-long problems.... Whereas "normal" colon cancer typically strikes late in life. Not to mention that carriers of this gene are more prone to other cancers as well.

I'm happy for this woman and this baby. We all want to protect our descendants from disease. But let's not protect them from conscience or the truth.

Yes, let's tell them the truth and let the parents make the choice instead of some outsider imposing upon them.

It's not even the case that fore-knowledge automatically results in abortion - Sarah Palin got some notoriety for choosing to continue to have a child that would be born with Down's Syndrome rather than abort. Wow, what a concept - choice. Given that she has the resources to care for this "special needs" child I can't find a reason to object. It may not have been the choice I would have made, but if I believe in the right to choose then I must grant it to her, even when I disagree with her. Likewise, although many people with known problems in their family like Huntington's or sickle cell or cystic fibrosis chose not to have children, many did (and still do) have children. Given the problems that have occurred when governments or doctors have imposed their views on parents, I say leave the choice in the hands of the parents and not societal authorities.

[Darth Wong]

The most maddening thing about assholes like this is that you know they don't even seriously believe their own arguments. They're just manufacturing whatever sounds good, because they don't want to use their real opinion, which is that we are violating the Will of God.

No one could seriously believe that a disease is a form of ethnicity, and that cleansing a family line of a genetic disease is a form of ethnic cleansing, yet that is precisely what he is trying to argue.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Christ, three of this person's arguments revolve around the question "why bother?", and the fourth is whining that a deadly trait in a family line is removed.

Given the Nazi fixation on "heritage", is anyone else as amused by anti-"eugenicist" sentiments like "don't tamper with my family's heritage!!" as I am?

[Kodiak]

Frankly, if you wanted to genetically engineer a kid to be financially successful, you'd be better off ensuring that he is not exceptionally intelligent, but rather, that he is good-looking and a ruthlessly selfish bastard who's good at lying to people.

That sounds familiar...

I was thinking more Tyr Anasazi, but Khan would work too.

It makes no sense that people would try to engineer a physical ideal since there can still be variation based on expression of genetics. I agree that the best use would be to cultivate raw intelligence and hope for the best. Isn't improving humanity a Christian principle? Some ways are just more expedient than others.

[Junghalli]

Oh please. Mother does that anyway. Every ovulation cycle her body selects 1000 of the best follicles (those free from genetic mutations, yes, the ovaries can tell). From this 1 (in rare cases more) get fertilized. If there is a problem (deleterious mutation, error in gastrulation) it never implants. After implantation, there is a 20% chance of mom aborting the fetus, often due to some sort of genetic defect.
Playing God. Heh. if life starts at conception *french accent* God iz de greatest abortionist of zem awl

You'll get no argument from me.

[Samuel]

Frankly, if you wanted to genetically engineer a kid to be financially successful, you'd be better off ensuring that he is not exceptionally intelligent, but rather, that he is good-looking and a ruthlessly selfish bastard who's good at lying to people.

That sounds familiar...

I was thinking more Tyr Anasazi, but Khan would work too.

It makes no sense that people would try to engineer a physical ideal since there can still be variation based on expression of genetics. I agree that the best use would be to cultivate raw intelligence and hope for the best. Isn't improving humanity a Christian principle? Some ways are just more expedient than others.

Nah- the Neitchians did selective breeding. Khan had to be genetic engineering (there is no way that they could have selectively breed him).

Going for attractiveness based on genetics... well, we really don't know how it works. As for improving humanity, I doubt that is a Christian principle. If it is, they were probably thinking of spiritually, rather than making everyone on the planet have good teeth and be cancer free.

Yeah, I remember a financial tape my dad showed me- rich dad, poor dad. The guy on the tape commented that the people who were the managers were the C students in school.

Actually, Rich Dad and Poor Dad is the PRIME example of dishonesty, lying and salemanship. The author, kiwosaki is a heckler who made his career out of selling How to Get Rich books based on empty advice.

Wow. My arguments help prove other people's points by accident.

I think we can all agree the author of the OP is an asshole? Is there any reasonable statements he makes?

[Kanastrous]

Isn't improving humanity a Christian principle? Some ways are just more expedient than others.

I suspect that groveling in churches is the preferred method. Maybe I'm behind the times.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

His argument rests on the basic logic that if X technology can potentially be used for ill, then it should be outlawed.

Care to make a list of the various technologies that would be outlawed if we followed this idiotic logic to its conclusion?

It would start with flint and move up.

[madd0ct0r]

Where to draw the line though?

fatal childhood diseases - check
possibly fatal adult diseases - check
dangerous adult diseases - maybe
irritating but not necessarily dangerous (slow metabolism, yellow teeth ect) - Is it worth it?

I carry three traits that have been present in the male line for at least the last three generations:
Male Pattern baldness
Dyslexia
Mild Manic Depression

now the first has yet to happen, but I'd have no qualms about exorcising it from my offspring.

The second is more difficult; my grandfather was a writer and I've leanings that way myself, but my father found school incredibly difficult and dropped out. Yet when asked he said he would NOT seek to have his dyslexia magically removed as it forms a core part of his identity. On balance it stays.

The last is hardest to call. I don't think I'd be as creative without the occasional period of mania or as thoughtful without the occasional downtime. Yet this can be an incredibly damaging condition.
Does the small risk of it manifesting heavily warrant it's removal?
i really don't know.


it's that old slippery slope - at what point should there be the line?
Particularly when it comes to mental issues.

[Eulogy]

The second is more difficult; my grandfather was a writer and I've leanings that way myself, but my father found school incredibly difficult and dropped out. Yet when asked he said he would NOT seek to have his dyslexia magically removed as it forms a core part of his identity. On balance it stays.

Identity? Deafness, AIDS, and and having your fucking face eaten off can form a core part of your identity, too. Dosen't mean we have to inflict it on future offspring or not cure those suffering from it now; there are plenty of other and far better ways to get an identity than to have a debilitating condition, ESPECIALLY when it could have been cleansed.

And since when is it "balancing" to keep a bad trait? Do you seriously think that you're making some sort of video game? Not to mention that forcing your kid to have a disability sounds like a great way to get his enmity, and a huge lawsuit besides.

Both you and your father are fucking idiots. You and he both sound like those brainless "parents" who want to form a so-called "deaf community" and make their own children deaf as well.

it's that old slippery slope - at what point should there be the line?
Particularly when it comes to mental issues.

Since embryos aren't people, it's hard to justify shooting down the wishes of parents wanting to have designer babies. No real harm is being done (except, perhaps, to the parents' wallets) to anybody, unlike the popular interpretation of eugenics (you know, the one where the undesirables are being killed/sterilized?). Nobody is dying or suffering if a father rejects an embryo because its penis would eventually be embarrassingly small.

In fact, I'd argue that, if parents can remove disease from their bloodline, they have an ethical duty to do so, in order to prevent that person from being saddled with the disease (and saddling society with the costs of taking care of said disabled). And that's where the line should be drawn - parents should not, and legally could not, force their children to have disease coded into them, not even for malevolent religious reasons. How would you feel if your father inflcted Alzheimer's on you, just to let you know what it's like?

[Alyrium Denryle]

The second is more difficult; my grandfather was a writer and I've leanings that way myself, but my father found school incredibly difficult and dropped out. Yet when asked he said he would NOT seek to have his dyslexia magically removed as it forms a core part of his identity. On balance it stays.

It forms a part of his identity now that he has it. It would not form a core part of the identity of any children you may have, if they never manifest it.

It is like asking if someone would be sad if their little brother was aborted while he was still in the womb. The correct answer is no, because you would never notice a difference.

The last is hardest to call. I don't think I'd be as creative without the occasional period of mania or as thoughtful without the occasional downtime. Yet this can be an incredibly damaging condition.
Does the small risk of it manifesting heavily warrant it's removal?
i really don't know.

I have a friend with severe rapid cycling bipolar disorder. Without VERY expensive anti psychotic meds, he is a danger to himself and others and cannot function.

Yes, the risk of it manifesting warrants the removal.

[sketerpot]

Where to draw the line though?

fatal childhood diseases - check
possibly fatal adult diseases - check
dangerous adult diseases - maybe
irritating but not necessarily dangerous (slow metabolism, yellow teeth ect) - Is it worth it?

I carry three traits that have been present in the male line for at least the last three generations:
Male Pattern baldness
Dyslexia
Mild Manic Depression

Don't draw the line. Instead, minimize a cost function. The way this works is, you attach weights to all genetic traits. Fatal childhood diseases would have a very high weight, dyslexia would have a lower weight, and male pattern baldness would have a low or nonexistent weight (depending on how you feel about baldness). Make sure there's enough randomness that we're not removing potentially valuable traits from the gene pool. This sort of approach works in genetic algorithms all the time, way better than trying to just draw a line.

Once again, math needs to be injected into the public debate. Lines are for suckers; fuzzy hyperplanes are where it's at!

[Vultur]

A lot of these mental conditions are definitely mixed blessings rather than flat-out problems. Dyslexia? A lot of dyslexic people are of above average intelligence. High-functioning autism is even more that way. Any selection for mental problems runs into the serious risk of hurting our potential for future geniuses.

And to me, that's the big thing. If I had to pick between a completely normal child and a dyslexic or Asperger's genius, would I be wrong to pick the latter? Most people I know with dyslexia/Asperger's wouldn't give it up if it made them 'normal' in other ways as well.

[Garlak]

A lot of these mental conditions are definitely mixed blessings rather than flat-out problems. Dyslexia? A lot of dyslexic people are of above average intelligence. High-functioning autism is even more that way. Any selection for mental problems runs into the serious risk of hurting our potential for future geniuses.

And to me, that's the big thing. If I had to pick between a completely normal child and a dyslexic or Asperger's genius, would I be wrong to pick the latter? Most people I know with dyslexia/Asperger's wouldn't give it up if it made them 'normal' in other ways as well.

Eehhh... correct me if I'm wrong but: if you had the choice of making sure your child was mentally healthy, or had dyslexia/Asperger's, you would go with the latter?

I've a learning disorder. It's not fun. People telling me how smart I am just pisses me off and makes me more depressed, with unreasonable expectations of myself.

Maybe another example might be Stephen Hawking's disability. Would you make the choice of having your child lose their ability in exchange for scientific brilliance?


Basically, put yourself in the position and thing about what you'd choose. I mean... come on! This isn't just a question of "well, removing mental diseases might deprive our civilization of possible geniuses; look how many brilliant people there are with Asperger's and such!!" it's more a case of "I have the chance to make sure my child doesn't develop Asperger's or other learning disorder--will I take it?"

[ray245]

One simple way to play around with those fools that believe that screening for cancer is evil, is to call them evil outright. Since those people would refuse to listen to any proper argument anyway, just keep calling them evil until they get annoyed and get embarrassed by their peers.

'Wow, you really enjoy bringing people into this world to torture them? '

[Vultur]

Basically, put yourself in the position and thing about what you'd choose.

In exchange for a significant increase in intelligence and creativity? I'd be willing to make that trade.

But that's not really my point. *Each parent* would NOT be doing anything wrong by making that decision. But if everyone did, it would hurt society as a whole, as there'd be fewer of the type of people who drive progress. That's the problem (in my opinion) with a lot of these issues: every individual making what would seem the right decision may add up to a problem for society as a whole.

See, I'm not against biotech by ANY means, especially for crops and things - but I'm deeply uncomfortable about doing significant genetic stuff to humans till we know what the side effects are, and that includes the long term, species- or gene pool-level ones. I'd rather leave some natural problems unfixed than have us realize 150 years down the road that we've royally screwed our gene pool and are losing intelligence, or fertility, or creativity, or any other useful quality. I think we have neither the scientific knowledge nor the cultural maturity to use it YET.

[Junghalli]

I'd rather leave some natural problems unfixed than have us realize 150 years down the road that we've royally screwed our gene pool and are losing intelligence, or fertility, or creativity, or any other useful quality.

If that happened, couldn't we always just reintroduce the genes to the next generation? We'd presumably keep records of the gene sequences, and reintroducing them shouldn't be much harder than getting rid of them.

I'd be much more worried about genes that have bad side effects on individuals (like genes for high intelligence that also lead to mental instability, for instance).

[TheLostVikings]

And since when is it "balancing" to keep a bad trait? Do you seriously think that you're making some sort of video game? Not to mention that forcing your kid to have a disability sounds like a great way to get his enmity, and a huge lawsuit besides.

Both you and your father are fucking idiots. You and he both sound like those brainless "parents" who want to form a so-called "deaf community" and make their own children deaf as well.

In fact, I'd argue that, if parents can remove disease from their bloodline, they have an ethical duty to do so, in order to prevent that person from being saddled with the disease (and saddling society with the costs of taking care of said disabled). And that's where the line should be drawn - parents should not, and legally could not, force their children to have disease coded into them, not even for malevolent religious reasons. How would you feel if your father inflcted Alzheimer's on you, just to let you know what it's like?

Just a note here, but I read some pretty through research of Dyslexia in a peer-reviewed journal a few years back, and it pretty much blasts your initial point straight out of the fucking water.

Dyslexia is in most cases caused by a few specific parts of the brain being underdeveloped, but the surrounding areas that they would otherwise have occupied are instead filled by the adjacent parts of the brain.

Which result in facts like that while people with Dyslexia are statistically worse at reading and writing (D'OH!), they are also statistically better at certain other things, like spatial perception, solving 3 dimensional problems, just to name a few.

So while this isn't some RPG, dyslexia does have indeed have reading-5 3D reasoning+2, etc.

The more you know...

[TheLostVikings]

I guess physical indicators are more murky for me. Stuff like cystic fibrosis and other genetically transmitted diseases etc I don't have a problem with, and it rather surprises me that the author of this article does. However, beyond that gets a bit more tricky and less cut and dry. It's hard to say what is desirable versus what is undesirable as far as physical appearance goes. I suppose there are a few things that can be pretty much universally agreed to be undesirable like male pattern baldness. It's far easier to choose to shave your head whereas it's much more difficult/expensive to regrow hair from a naturally balding head. OTOH, things like height, eye color, etc I'm not so sure I'd buy into.

If I remember correctly, the genes causing male baldness are interconnected with some rather serious stuff like level of testosterone production, or something along those lines.

So while that is one of those things that seems an really easy choice to get rid of, it's also one of the tings that might just come back and bite us in the ass down the line.

Personally I am on the fence on this one, simply because we have just begun to scratch the surface, and the possible ramifications of some seemingly harmless changes are yet fully understood.