TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

i agree with the saying “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” because i think it will only cause problems. People will be paranoid that they will make an illness that is said to occur in their lifetime that things they do will make the illness worse or arrive sooner. They will only be holding back from living life to the fullest. also in class a while back Mrs. Ferguson proposed a question “if you knew your significant other had a deadly illness in the DNA and their offspring would surely get it or have a chance of getting it, would you marry them and/or have kids?” I think this would surely cause problems for couples and if they chose to marry and have kids, they are more than likely to feel guilty once the child gets the illness.

On the surface level, this sounds like a good idea; before you decide to have kids, you and your partner can do a “quick” check to see if your DNA combining would potentially have disastrous effects. However, there are enough worried, over-analytical first time parents out there who don’t need any more encouragement to stress over their baby. Would knowing the possible outcome of mating with a certain person be appropriate information for the majority of the population? I think not. Also, if genetic testing became part of standardized tests, who’s to say that insurance companies won’t get a hold of this information and charge more for perfectly healthy people who have the gene for Alzheimer’s or other diseases?

bonnie, ferg, and I had a pretty long conversation about this same issue just before the last test.

information such as this could be used against a person in cases such as qualification for life or health insurance. As well as a drop in a persons mental health affecting their physical health if the person learns that they have a serious chronic or fatal disease.

“ignorance is bliss”

I believe that overall it would be beneficial to know everything about your genome both good and bad. There are hardly any down sides. Knowing your genetic past can tell you more about who you are. Knowing that you carrie and allele for a dangerous incurable disease might prevent you from passing on the gene thus preventing the spread of the disease.

I can definately see the benefits to knowing what genes you carry and could potentially pass on to your children. Also, it would just be interesting looking through your genome and comparing it with others. However, I would never have this done myself unless there was a risk of me inhereting a gene for a disease and I wanted to make sure. I’m not sure why exactly; maybe i’m scared of what I’d find, or maybe I just don’t care enough. But I don’t think the potential mental risk of knowing everything about yourself is something I want to experience

I would want to know if I was carrying a certain disease. I mean, if I’m going to pass something on to my kids, I’d rather be able to tell them the truth once they are old enough to understand. If I’m at risk of dying because of a disease that’ll kill me later on in life, I’d rather be able to live my life to the fullest and make sure my family is taken care of.

Yes, I want to know what I’m at risk at. I also want to know what I can pass on to my kids. I think that the entire public would be better off. I know this is kind of blunt and may be seen as harsh, but if people know what they’re carrying, they’ll know better than to reproduce and pass on lethal genes. I mean, if the kid’s going to die young, you might as well save yourself and your partner of the grief that would probably ensue after death of said child.

I say to have the genetic information private, just like with HIPPA.

i don’t think i would want to know personally becuase if i did indeed have some sort of traumatic illness i would dread it for the rest of my life i would never want to wake up in the morning knowing that i will die at an early age becuase of my genes. i can see how it would be helpful however given the choice i would never want to know i don’t need that kind of stress.

I would most certainly like to know where my ancestors and who they were. Ive heard people say that “we are all from Africa” but I only know so much about that statement. I assume most fo my relatives were african but I know for sure that some are half white. I find this very interesting but too good to be true.

Know what diseases I carry would be nice but also depressing for my childrens sake i would like to know but for myself i would prefer to find out later. However I guess I should be glad i live in an advanced time period.

Im sure that if he had known his wife was a carrier of HD he would not have had children. The idea of not having children is sad which is why I would not want know every genomic detail.

I believe that even if put in plain english most people would not be able to fully comprehend what this invention has to offer. Most people dont even know what a genome is and could care less. I am going to assume however that only certain people will be interested in this device.

In my opinion this could have good and bad results. People who discover that they have deadly diseases could panic. The human race might diminish due to the probabilty of individuals not wanting to give birth to potentionally genetically endangered children. Some may even commit suidcide. There are things that not all people should no.

I personally would not want to know if I carried a gene that could potentialy be fatal to future offspring for or myself in the future. First of all if you put a time stamp on life the whole course of life changes. If you know that you are to inherit a fatal disease that will lead to your destruction or death you live life in a different view. It would be nice to know in a sense to get things in order for your life, or in the case of deciding if you want children or not however it can also put a damper on things. If your and your partner are both healthy normal appearing human beings that give birth to a child with a genetic disorder it way not be obvious which parent gave the child that gene. In that sense one parent is not to blame more than the other. On the other hand if you knew it was in your genome that the child inherited the gene than you would have a sense of guilt upon yourself.

I fnd it somewhat ironic that Wexler is responsible for finding the HD allele but will not be personally tested for it. I think that says something about the study of science. Just because we can do something or have the power to do something doesn’t mean that we always should. Just because we can track down such alleles doesn’t mean that its truly ethical. It could be the turning in point in someones life, it could stop someone from pursuing their dreams. We posses the knowledge to do so, however it is against natures will that we know all.

Could this genome testing lead to a disruption n the human gene pool? If we as humans are all tested for harmful genetic diseases and stop the spread via no allowing people with theses adverse genes to reproduce could we shrink the population of genetic disorders in the world? Could we create a perfect society?

Haha, that’s funny. “Return your results online”? I don’t trust any of my personal information on the internet, no matter what website it is. I’d rather drive to the bank than enter my information on the website.

Besides, who knows what kind of sick person would attempt to access those files? What then?

The key thing here is “potentially”. Mapping genomes isn’t an exact science and I doubt it ever will be. I doubt it will ever really be. Don’t you need extensive amounts of DNA to accurately map out where everyone came from? And wouldn’t you need old DNA from generations back? I think it would make sense to use mitochondrial DNA, but…whatever.

Like Jocelyne said, I think it is too good to be true. There’s a catch somewhere, I just don’t know where.

I would want to know. I think it’s useful to know your genetic history, the good and bad. For example if by doing this, I find I’m a carrier for a certain disease I would then know that I have the potential to pass on an unfavorable trait to my children. This way I can protect my future offspring from inheriting bad genes. The point Andrea brought up is also very interesting and definitely thought provoking. Would it be possible to create a perfect society? Theoretically maybe, but I don’t know if that would be plausible…there’s lots of people in the world.

This is an interesting procedure but, I don’t think that it is beneficial to me. I definitely do not want to know what I have in my genome because, like Ethan, I would not want to get up in the morning. It would be dreadful to know all of your misfortunes and problems. The worst part is that you really can’t do much to fix your problems. However, collectively, this service could provide new aspects concerning population in different areas. For example, as people pay for this service, the data collected will add up and possible trends could be observed. Or show some evolutionary principles based on geographic location. It may add a whole new dimension to population studies.

I know somebody who got his genome sequenced for geneology purposes, and he was really happy with the results. However….for me personally, I’m not sure if I would want my origins traced. I dont need to know where I come from to know the person that I am. The knowledge that I might have a distant relative from peru really would not effect my views on life.

I would never want to have this done. Even though the results might be intriguing, I wouldnt want to study myself as if I am a science experiment…especially when the results of said experiment could seriously alter me life. I know myself. I would freak if I had the knowledge that I was carrying the gene for soemthing like ALS or cancer…

I’m torn between the two. On the one hand, knowing all the diseases and disorders I am prone to could possibly save my life and make me knowledgable about what genes could be passed to my children. However, it would be overwhelming to know what fatal diseases I might die from.

I definitely wouldn’t want to to the DNA I possess. As is, I seem to be a ‘worry-wart’ about alot of things. Certain topics regarding death or murder freak me out, and though I can get over those, knowing about a flaw in my genetics that is inevitably going to pull me down one day will stick with me forever and probably make me go insane. I think life should be about living for the present and enjoying everything around you the way it is at the moment, and getting secret information or insight about the future can mess up peoples’ minds. It would be like shaking the eight ball letting pure chance allow you to receive a good or bad answer for your question, but in this case, the fortune is real. Though it’s neat that we have technology to do that, I think that this procedure is border-line playing God, and I think stuff like that isn’t good to put in our hands.

As everyone else is saying, I am also torn with what I would do. I think the concept of the human genome is a good concept, but I do not think that it is something that should be used to make sure you are giving birth to the “perfect” child. In some cases where a birth dissorder or some adverse gene were prevelent and had a high chance of being passed on then yes I think that the human genome is a good tool to help with that. But for a normal set of parents looking to have a child, and they themselves have no obviouse nature or history of a dissorder than I don’t think that this should be an option.
It really leads to the question that what happens if a mother becomes pregnant and finds out her child is going to have some incurable malady, what is she going to do? Would this lead to more terminated pregnancies? I think that if it were an option then it most likly would, which is why I do no think that human genomes should be offered to everyone. You should take a chance with life, that is what living is about.

I wonder if knowing your genome would actually cause a sense of uneasieness. Could you potentially learn that you are related to some of your friends, or perhaps and ex boyfriend or girlfriend. It sems to me that learning about your ancestry could lead you to learn a lot more negative things about your past than positive. You could learn that you carry the gene of so life altering sickness, or maybe you carry the genes of some famous scientist, or some mass killer. You don’t know, and I think personally that it is better off that way.

This really depends on personal preference. I would want to know, so I could be prepared for my death. It would also be good to know that I am free of genetic illness and don’t have to worry about passing on anything to any future children. For me, it’s a win-win. However, some might not take it right. If your fiance asks you about any genetic diseases you might have, and you say you have one, if they are irresponsible or selfish there is a good chance that they would leave you, and no one wants that. Any information from these tests, I believe, should be completely confidential, not even available to insurance companies.

I’ve always been interested in my family history especially on my mother’s side of the family. Thus, if I had the money to spend I would pay the $999 to find out my genome that is if I had the money to spend. It would be interesting to see what traits I have in common with my aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, and how our traits all relate back to my grandparents, like a game of cards. Not only that, but I am so eager to find out my family history my parents tell me that so far I’m a mixture of the middle east from Egyptian, to Lebanese, to Palestine, and I think French. I just find it so exciting to know what genes came from where. Okay, now shifting back over to reality, if there was a possibility that I may have dieses like Huntington disease then I would act like how Nancy Wexler is acting. If I knew that I was going to die young naturally then I would most likely have been spoiled, for I’m pretty sure my parents and family would have pitied me, thus I would have grown up without any morals, any goals, and any character. I would have been forced out of reality and what it is like to live in the real world, which may seem nice, but I would have no moral background.

Of coarse i agree with that saying what if i had a the power to teleport would that mean its ok for me to rob a bank nadda nadda. for me personally i would like to know what the chances are of me getting a specif disease or something of the sort. but i would not want to base my decision off it which i would obviously do. i see it as playing God and i am not fan of that. stephen out

I just wonder if, since this information is online, would the information be able to be accessed by the general public? This is an interesting issue, because if anyone were able to access this sort of information, that would seriously affect issues such as life insurance.

Well to start off I really don’t think that there is a definite answer on the topic on if knowing your genome is good or bad. But for the most part I am leaning towards the bad. Two main reasons are that if you know that you have a chronic disease, it would take a great toll on you mentally. And then when filing for health insurance, what happens when getting a person’s genome becomes cheaper and health insurance companies can do this procedure on all its clients, I’ll tell you what, people’s health insurance rates will sky rocket

I think it is amazing to learn about the genes we have, where they are located, and how they make us the way we look and function. I see nothing wrong with learning about our past because it helps us in the present and perhaps the future. I would love to know my family history and what genes I got from different sides of my family. Apparantly I am related to Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) and I wonder what traits I share with him and my other relatives.

I would not want to know the bad parts of my genome. The future should never be completely known or decided upon. I do not want to know if my children will have diseases or something wrong with them because if they are born, then even it the short span of life they live, they have a purpose in being here.

Not gonna lie, I actually would want to have this done for me. I think it would be very interesting, scary at times, but interesting to know what your individual genetic code means and codes for. And, considering I’m thinking of genomics as a possible future career, it would be nice to know things about myself before doing it for other people.

I think I would like to know this particular bit of information to use as a protection for myself, because, knowing what my genes code for, I could protect myself further if it was a case that could be preventable or delayed.

This is quite interesting but I wonder if it would be possible to obtain the information at a cheaper rate, or maybe through another form of technology that doesn’t involve the DNA microarray technique…not that it would be better, but that it may be possible.

i dont want to know every single detail of my gene. everything is going good and i like the way everything is going. i dont want the new information to ruin my life. but this process is good for people with gene problems and might want to know about there future and tis process looks affordable

I was thinking how to make a comment that was not already stated and I decided it was impossible. (kidding, only kidding). Actually what I came up with was that aside from this being an information-age technique, are the moral implications really that different from previous advancements? For example, are we not toying with nature every time we “eradicate” diseases with vaccinations (not saying that’s bad, but still)? What about organ transplants, or assisted pregnancies? I would say that it is not necessarily the advancements that are getting morally stickier and stickier, but rather we as a society are better informed and thus asking more questions.

Another thought with this sort of thing….what would happen if dna testing became a norm for babies? If dna was able to be reconstructed when it is messed up, then the possibilities could very well be damaging. I mean…would there be a whole division between babies tested and “fixed” and natural born babies?

Finding out your genome by itself is a dangerous idea, because insurance companies would try to find out what kind of disease you are likely to have or are a carrier for so that they can boost up your insurance rates. But adding all that information the internet where everyone can take a peek at, well that is a risk that I would not be willing to take on such a pointless procedure, I mean it would be bad enough for insurance companies to get their dirty paws on that information but if a computer hacker got that stuff who knows what would happen

i think I am all right without knowing my DNA sequences and my disesases. i want to have kids one day and i dont want to have the guilty feeling. so i stay as ignorant.

I also thought of the fact that if everyone had their genome sequenced, there would probably be many less children in the world. Ill bet that the majority of the human population carries at least one “bad” gene that they wouldn’t want to pass on to their children and they would be pressured by the views of others and their own doubts to not have children, because if the disorder showed up, then people would say it was thier fault

Unfortunately, I believe that people would inevitably bring religion into this conflict. From their point of view I think they would see this as almost “playing God” in the fact that with the information this would present, there would be an ere of almost predetermined-ness to knowing our genome. It almost feels as if fate and choice seems to precipitate out with the presentation of such information.

Well yes if you can find out something like you have huntington diesese than you can avoid having kids and giving them that diesese. You can also find traces of your past if you didn’t know. I read a story of a black woman who found out through DNA testing she was realated to this white man far away in the country. So it can be helpful.

This could give parents unnecessary fears. Just because being a carrier of a particular gene causes your offspring to be more likely to get a certain disease doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have children. Because many of us are carriers of some genetic defect (such as diabetes, etc). Who knows, a couple could have had a genius baby which they didn’t from the fear of having a genetically defected child. What if Helen Keller’s parents had known how she was going to turn out?

In areas like this, I tend to have an extremely traditional view. I mean, I like not knowing all the nitty gritty.

Sometimes, knowing that you have an affinity for this or that FATAL or severely detrimental illness is almost like having a phantom follow you for the rest of your life.

Ultimately, that type of information could cause a bulk of people to swing to extremes: either abandoning all caution with the that that “there’s nothing to loose” or living out their lives as hermits. Living in fear of incuring the judgement day of the onset of whatever disease has genetically been predicted to befall them.