Cancer and the Secrets of Your Genes
By Theodora Ross,
The New York Times
| 08. 16. 2014
DALLAS — ON Aug. 6, researchers announced in The New England Journal of Medicine that they had found that mutations in a gene called PALB2 greatly increase the risk of breast cancer. This is one of the biggest developments since the discovery in the ’90s of the role of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in breast and ovarian cancer.
The response among patients has been predictable. One woman’s email to me summed it up: “I’d like to get an entire genome scan to rule out a hidden cancer diagnosis.”
Genetic testing has revolutionized how we think about cancer, allowing us to make some decent predictions about who might get certain cancers and who might benefit from preventive treatments. Many know the story of Angelina Jolie, who used her family history to learn she had a BRCA1 mutation. She chose to have a double mastectomy instead of waiting to see if she developed cancer. We may not envy this choice, but we do appreciate the power that comes with taking evidence-based action against a deadly disease...
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It’s been a busy couple of months in biopolitics, with developments in the US, UK, China, Japan, and implicitly on Mars. Time for a brief roundup.
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Bioethics needs an update
The National Research Act is now 50 years old. It was signed into law on July 12, 1974, as a direct response to publicity about the 1932 “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The Hastings Bioethics Forum celebrated its anniversary with an...
By Robert Resta, The DNA Exchange | 07.22.2024
Medical geneticists and genetic counselors have an often complicated and at times tense relationship with people with disabilities, their families, advocates, and scholars. Geneticists are strong advocates and supporters for all of their patients, regardless of their abilities and disabilities...
By Katherine Bourzac, Nature | 07.10.2024
Image courtesy National Human Genome Research Institute
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to encourage effective medical advances while also ensuring that patients and research subjects are protected. This dual mandate demands tricky judgment calls that are made more difficult by outside pressures of several kinds, political, judicial, and especially commercial. This April story at Bloomberg examines one deeply troubling pattern of regulatory capture:
Americans Are Paying Billions to Take Drugs That Don’t Work
Companies are increasingly...