Researchers Discover the First 'Heart Attack' Gene

jimi1283 writes "A group of researchers recently conducted a study on 100 members of a family that had a high percentage of heart attack and other coronary disease. The study lead to the discovery of the gene responsible."

Comments

Gene knowledge has an ugly impact on ethics

[G4from128k]

Ethics and public policty really can't handle this type of knowledge on who can get what disease after exposure to common environmental factors or habits. Current health policy standards and EPA guidelines assume that "all people are created equal." Thus, the EPA sets carcinogen levels to create a less than one-in-a-million chance of getting cancer. But what happens now that we know that we are not all created equal -- instead of everyone having a one-in-a-million chance, we have 999,999 people with no chance of cancer and 1 genetically identifiable person per million with a 100% chance of cancer.

The existence of distinct genetic susceptabilities to high-fat foods, smoking, carcinogens, medications, etc. makes it hard to create uniform regulations for food, medicine, and occupational conditions.