Down's Symptoms May Be Treatable In the Womb

missb writes "US researchers have found that prenatal treatment for Down syndrome works in mice. This raises the possibility that a pregnant woman who knows her unborn child has Down syndrome might be able to forestall some of the symptoms before giving birth. When fetal mouse pups that had a syndrome similar to Down's were treated with nerve-protecting chemicals, some of the developmental delays that are part of the condition — such as motor and sensory abilities — were removed."

Comments

It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[0xdeadbeef]

There's already a treatment guaranteed to prevent the expression of these symptoms: abortion.

Oh, I know the every sperm is sacred types will whine about this, but consider the desires of the child. Wouldn't you prefer never to have existed if you knew you would be subjected to mental retardation, health complications, and a short lifespan?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Microlith]

I think the point of this is more in figuring out how to, step by step, intercept and prevent the syndrome entirely.

Sure, abortion prevents it as well. But the option to defeat the syndrome during development and not have it expressed at all in a living person would be better.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Darkness404]

And to your solution I have another, if the kid really feels that way, there is an easy way: suicide. If they felt that it was best not to have existed they can kill themselves. But honestly, I don't see any sky-high suicide rates for mentally impaired people, dying people or people with health conditions.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[c_sd_m]

The people I know with disabilities, particularly mental ones, are generally happier than the rest of us.
Have you ever spent time with someone with Down's Syndrome, severe Autism, ...?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[powerspike]

maybe that is because they don't fully understand what they are missing, or just can't compehend it ?

did you everthink of that.

and to see it from the other pov, once you are aware you have life, you want to keep it. (well most of us do).

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[message144]

"I know the every sperm is sacred types will whine about this"

FYI, sperm != human life.

"Wouldn't you prefer never to have existed if you knew you would be subjected to mental retardation, health complications, and a short lifespan"

What qualifications do you have to make this decision on behalf of others?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[0xdeadbeef]

Then perhaps the solution for a perfectly happy society is to lobotimize ourselves, become completely dependent on our caregivers, and die at thirty.

Wait, isn't that Logan's Run?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Shados]

No, they can't. Everyone will do everything they can to stop them, they'll have long periods of trauma and depressions, if they miss they'll be put in a psychiatric hospital, and it may make things worse.

In this world, killing yourself is potentially harder than killing someone else.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Chuck Chunder]

maybe that is because they don't fully understand what they are missing, or just can't compehend it ?

did you everthink of that.

They? What about you? I'm sure there's plenty you don't comprehend and are missing but don't know about.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[MrMista_B]

There are people in the world who are healthier, fitter, and smarter than you. Compared to them, you're disabled.

Should you therefore, according to your logic, be executed?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Thiez]

> So what you're saying is, it might be easier when the body consists of fewer cells?

It will be easier but still impossible. You would have to remove a complete choromose from every cell in the body. We cannot even remove a single chromosome from a cell, by the time it is possible to diagnose downs syndrome, there are millions/billions of cells already. Even if such a treatment were possible (and I daresay this will not happen during our lifetimes), it would have all kinds of risks, and it would probably be ridiculously expensive.

Why even go there? Just get an abortion and try again. I'm sure medical science has more important things to cure.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Thiez]

> In the mean time, you might want to take a google maps look at the Western U.S. and Canada.

There may be space for more more people, but do you really think we could support even the 6 billion people we have now if all of them would have american standards of living?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[yakiimo]

How incredibly small minded. How do you think the super-genius thinks about your pitiful, semi-intelligent existence? Does that diminish the value you place on your own life?

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[orasio]

Everybody might have health complications. I am happy to live, even if I have thyroid dysfunction, and early graying.

Shorter lifespans are not so much of an issue. People smoke, eat a lot, and don't exercise, everyday, everywhere.

That leaves us with the central issue: the mental "retardation" problem.
In my case, I wouldn't mind having a much lower IQ than I have now. Most people I know do, and they are happy. I don't think rational abilities are that much important for a good life.

I know several individuals with the syndrome, and they seem to like living a lot. They are not drooling pieces of furniture, they are real people with feelings, hopes, and limitations, just like us. It's true they never grow up, but who needs to?

I think the issue is that they don't do real work, so they can't be assured a decent living in most societies. I understand getting rid of them is the easiest solution, but I don't think it's the only one.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[the_Bionic_lemming]

There's already a treatment guaranteed to prevent the expression of these symptoms: abortion.

Oh, I know the every sperm is sacred types will whine about this, but consider the desires of the child. Wouldn't you prefer never to have existed if you knew you would be subjected to mental retardation, health complications, and a short lifespan?

Yes, because no parent would ever want the option to save their child, and have them grow up normally.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[arb phd slp]

There is a continuous spectrum of cognitive capacity from near-vegetative to super-genius. Are we supposed to decide people's right to live based on arbitrary cut-offs on tests that we already know aren't perfectly valid? Absolutely not.

I really wish that my advisor would get her study submitted and published so that I could link to it here. (I'm sure she says the same thing about my own as well).

She's been doing early intervention with DS kids much earlier than ever before and providing high-tech means for them to communicate. After 5 years the kids are entering school on-par with their peers.

It is starting to look like mental retardation is a secondary symptom of DS, not a primary one. DS results in SPEECH disability, which messes up language development, which in turn screws up cognitive development. We've been providing an alternative, non-speech, means to communication development and it has led to surprisingly positive results in cognition development. (This falls into the category of "manuscript in progress" and hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, but I expect it to pass that hurdle in the next year or so).
Here is a description of the study methods.
http://www.aac-rerc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=152
It's in Breeze. Sorry about that.

So, if it becomes known that Down syndrome only causes mental retardation when we fail to provide the right care and education, do you still think that abortion/eugenics is an appropriate treatment???

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[stranger_to_himself]

Wish I had mod points. You deserve some for being absolutely right while likely getting flamed into oblivion for it.

The GP is not right. All the things he mentions are relative, not absolute. People with DS can lead happy, fulfilling lives, and that's really the only thing that matters in this case. Before you judge the value of the lives of people with DS you should ask them whether they would have preferred not to have been born.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[stranger_to_himself]

I don't have to ask anyone to judge their value in that context. At its coldest, its not hard to judge absolute value -- what is the benefit a birth will bring to society versus its cost.

If you want to talk relative vs absolute, there's a pretty significant percentage of people who end up in the red on that count.

How do you measure the benefits and costs to society? In dollar value? That would be pretty much impossible, certainly in the case of benefits. How can you quanify the benefits a person brings?

If society has a certain amount of resources available to support the raising of the next generation, and the birth of the child in question will use the resources that otherwise could've been used for ten children without fundamental genetic defects, that's a pretty absolute value judgment as well.

I don't agree with this. A society is about people giving and taking. Different people give and take different amounts and this varies with their environment and the stage of their life. I know of people with DS who definately contribute more than they take. Converesly I know of a lot of people who take considerably more than they give. I wouldn't advocate killing people on that basis.

Incidentally I'd be interested to know how you get the over-populated by 2-5 figure. I'm not arguing with it, I'm just curious.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[yakiimo]

I don't want to minimize whatever it is you have been through, but it's presumptuous of you to call everyone else's knee-jerk reactions as if you are the only person who has problems or has dealt with mental or genetic "disorders". You obviously don't have Down's Syndrome, so why do you think everyone with Down's would share your view if they were "normal"?

It sounds like you have setup a false dichotomy in your mind somehow that people are either "human" or not. Evolution has shown us otherwise innumerable times. Today's "disorder" could be tomorrow's critical survival trait.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[dissy]

And to your solution I have another, if the kid really feels that way, there is an easy way: suicide. If they felt that it was best not to have existed they can kill themselves. But honestly, I don't see any sky-high suicide rates for mentally impaired people, dying people or people with health conditions.

While possibly true, two details remain.

Abortion is legal, where suicide is illegal.

And once a person tries to kill themselves, they are locked down so they can't use their hands nor move. Most people don't consider that an improvement to their life style.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[mcvos]

Down's is caused by an extra chromosome, it's impossible to defeat the syndrome during development without modifying the genetic code of every cell in the body.

Removing the extra gene can't be done, but for curing the symptoms (including the mental retardation), this research looks very promising. And it's the symptoms that are the problem here.

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Gabrill]

Because Human life isn't valued in economic terms, not yet anyway. By your judgment, everything up to and including genocide would be perfectly justified as long as the balance sheet came out positive.

There is no line where the unthinkable becomes OK. If it's wrong for a million people to be killed for a reason, then it's also wrong for 1 person to be killed.

According to this http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000815/825.html diagnosis is usually done at 16 weeks at the earliest. That puts the baby squarely in the 2nd trimester, and squarely into the gray zone as to whether the baby is an individual with rights. So we are definitely not talking about "a bunch of cells".

Re:It's a deformed child, not a moral trophy

[Shikaku]

You've obviously never had a gun pointed at you. Point one at yourself. Go ahead, try it.

Why do you think military training takes so long? Self-preservation is a hell of a fear. If you are in a situation where you know you could die very easily, this hidden fear kicks in HARD.

Also

[Chuck Chunder]

Shooting people in the head means they won't get cancer!

I'm not sure what your experience is but I've met and known quite a few people with Downs Syndrome who seemed happy. Certainly as happy as the rest of us at any rate.

It seems rather ridiculous to assume their lives aren't worth living. What next, deciding a childs life isn't going to be worth it because they aren't as sexy as Hugh Jackman or hung like Ron Jeremy?

Re:Nice troll, but...

[glittalogik]

As a general rule their intellectual development will freeze at around the level of a 4th or 5th grader, but they are capable of the emotional maturity and ability to complete of domestic tasks to keep themselves alive. They can often do quite well in a sharehouse/hostel kind of environment with a part-time carer or health professional available to help them with complex tasks or issues. Complete independence is unlikely (although possible in some cases) but they're not helpless.

Apparently, the Eugenics Movement lives

[DesScorp]

There's already a treatment guaranteed to prevent the expression of these symptoms: abortion.

I know I'm violating Godwin's Law here, but in this case, to hell with Godwin. Nice answer there, Mein Heir; tell us, what are your exacting standards for the rest of humanity? Who else gets the axe in your perfect world?

Who the hell are you to tell people what kind of contribution they can make in this world? Who the hell are you to determine who gets to live and who has to die without even a chance for life? I've never in my 40 years met a family that regretted their Downs child. I've never met a family that didn't consider those children a blessing.

These kids may not be capable of everything we are, but every Downs kid I've ever met is a far better human than you are. You're a rotten little man.

Re:Apparently, the Eugenics Movement lives

[Shados]

What you've never met isn't people who regretted their childs. That is actually extremely common. What you have never met, is people who, in this polically correct society (and in other society that has similar levels of peer pressure), will admit to it, even to their closest confidents.

Considering your stance on the matter, which you seem to hold pretty dear from the wording you use (and you are fully entitled to it, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything), I doubt anyone would EVER dare tell you that they regretted their child, down's syndrom or not.

To give a different point of view, at the risk of getting flamed to hell and beyond, I really, really despise kids (don't worrie, I'll never have to make my significant other go through an abortion... snip snip and all, thats all taken care of). Like, really, REALLY hate kids. Everyone around me knows my stance on this. Because of this, I had a LOT of mothers and families tell me in secret how they wish they never had their kids. In certain cases, that they didn't even love them, but that they still did what they could so it wouldn't show. None of those were disabled child's families, either. And to make things clear, I don't live in a ghetto, and the people I'm talking about came from all kinds of families, from poor to rich, etc.

Only in Wonderland does all families consider their kids blessings, ESPECIALLY kids with issues. They may not admit it, they may WANT to love them. That doesn't mean they do.

Re:Down's syndrome and abortion

[kramulous]

Or, prevent births from those deemed unfit.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Disabled does not mean "Better off Dead".

[mumb0.jumb0]

I'm shocked by how many people have said "it's cheaper just to abort". Since when did human life become so cheap? Or to those that have said "the child would rather have not been born than to be born with Down syndrome": how can you possibly speak for that child? Who are you to make that life and death decision on their behalf? Disabled does not mean "better off dead". Did nobody else see the article about Stephen Hawking on the front page today? This is about preventing or reducing a disability. It's about giving a person a better chance at life. Think of it this way: if you were going to be born with a malformed left arm, but it could be rectified in the womb, what would you choose? Death or a normal arm?