WOMEN’S BODIES: WHAT ARE THE DOWNSIDES TO THE DISCOVERY OF CANCER GENES?
A serious danger of these discoveries is that people gain a false sense of security if they are found not to have the gene. Feeling safe, they may forgo measures to prevent and detect early cancer, and they thus risk developing the same type of cancer. No test will become available in the foreseeable future, if ever, that will guarantee freedom from all cancer risk.
If you had, for example, colon cancer, your children could screened for the gene for hereditary nonpolyposis cancer. Even they are found not to harbor this gene, they are still at risk developing colon … Continue Reading