Baby To Be Born Without the Gene For Breast Cancer

manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"

Comments

Re:Tough choice

[hairyfeet]

I used to not believe in "Nature VS Nurture" until it happened in my family.

I wasn't one to believe that it was strictly DNA that made us who we are, always believing that it was whether we were raised with love. Then I got to see living proof with my own eyes. Aunt Edna and Uncle Larry were 2 of the sweetest folks you'd ever meet. Kind, friendly, hard working country folks with a nice little farm outside of town. Now Edna(or Eddie as we all called her) was told the odds of her having kids was pretty much zero, so in the early 70's they adopted Rocky who was barely 6 months old. The boy hadn't been abused or neglected, and was healthy as can be. A few months later by some miracle Eddie gets pregnant and has Donald. Now these folks never made a single bit of difference in those kids, hell they wouldn't even let the family say anything about Rocky being adopted. As far as they were concerned they were both gifts from God and that was that.

It didn't take us long to realize something was seriously wrong with Rocky. If you have ever heard the phrase "bad seed" it was all too true with him. Animal cruelty and torture, vicious behavior, you name it. Meanwhile his brother Donald was the nicest boy you ever want to meet. Finally at the age of 14 they got the court to unseal the records in the hopes of talking to one or both of the biological parents to see if there was a history of mental illness after he slaughtered the neighbor's cat. What they found in the record was the stuff of nightmares. It turned out Rocky was born in prison where he mother was doing a stretch because she tried to kill a john by slitting his throat over a money dispute. And the father...damn. The father was her pimp and got into a bar fight and when he lost he calmly went to his car, took out a hatchet out of the trunk, and went back in the bar where he proceeded to chop the guy all to hell, killing him of course.

After trying everything they could they finally had to get a restraining order against Rocky when he turned 18. He has spent nearly his entire adult life in prison, and is currently serving life in Texas for a dope dealer robbery that went bad resulting in a death. Donald has never been arrested and lives a nice life with his wife and 2 kids. So until they change the rules to where an adoptive parent gets at least the medical and psych history of the birth parents I would be seriously afraid to adopt a child. Taking care of a child with an obvious physical disability is one thing, but if you got a child that had a family history of serious mental disorders you could be putting the lives of your entire family at risk. So does anybody know if they even warn adoptive parents about such things? Or do they just leave it like a ticking time bomb for the parents to find out about the hard way?