Genetic Screening Will Not Put Limits on Equal Opportunity :: Science Biology Biological Essays

Genetic Screening Will non Put Limits on Equal OpportunityIntroductionGenetic covert is a imperativeness issue in todays public policy forum, research and industry. Genetic screening provides enormous opportunities and is an incredible advance in science. However, catching screening poses problems that ar not and can not be easily overlooked. These are the sideline two issues dealt with in this paper. What can genetic screening offer throng that shortly is not being offered and at what cost to the people allow for this advance be? Genetic screening was devised to offer people a service and more important, to essentially, protect them from themselves.Genetic screening involves the screening of persons genotypes to decide if they (1) are already associated with disease or are predisposed to disease, (2) may pass on disease to their descendants, or (3) produce other variations not associated with disease. (NAS 1975) Genetic screening is used as a means to retard the onset or provide control for genetically inherited diseases. This in the long run is economical and treatment is effective. Screening of this type involves the staining of genetic disease and must first be defined to image an understanding in the objectives of screening. Carriers of a genetic disease appear sane and are not affected except if the trait is expressed quantitatively across a population. In this case, the individual will have almost disease characteristics however, not as severe as those with the disease. Individuals that have a genetic disease are almost always homozygous recessive allele for that gene meaning that there is an insufficiency in its ability to behave the correct function. One must not mistake a genetic screening running with a genetic diagnostic test. The difference is corking and can be easily confused. A genetic screening test is not a definite confirmation of disease presence. It only gives an live or signal to the possible presence that could affect t he health of an individual. A genetic diagnostic test can tell with greater certainty if a disease is present in an individual. (Blatt 1996)Testing-MethodsThere are contrasting times throughout the life span of a human in which genetic tests, both screening and diagnostic, can be preformed. The most everyday and recognizable are the prenatal tests and testing of newborns. The genetic screening tests currently available for pregnant women are maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein (MSAFP) screening, enhanced MSAFP, amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling (CVS), percutaneous umbilical blood sampling (PUBS), fetal biopsy and fetal cell sorting.