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possible, and not so far
away.
Hope for curing diseases such as cancer
exists, and keeps the current victims
fighting, waiting for the solution.

Again, potential negatives'
occur from knowing too much.
For example, what if your company
requires your genome' to
see how likely you are to get a
certain disease or to react in a
certain way. They might not
give you a promotion, fearing

that you might die in the next 5
years, as you have a 20%
chance of doing so. Or what if
you can't be hired as a pilot, or military pilot because there is
a 0.9% chance for you to lose
your conscience under high
pressure. Of course, these are
made up figures, but the possibilities
are endless, and the
point, I believe, has been
made. This could easily occur
before we find out how to cure
certain genes, because just
having the complete human
genome doesn't mean we can
instantly perform on it. Is this
fair? Probably not.
The ultimate question here is,
would we be better off without
knowing all this? First think of
what people suffering from
cancer/cystic fibrosis/
hemophilia/myopathies /
thrombocytopenia etc. feel
about this, and then decide.

Some people may argue that
toiling with our genes is wrong
because of religious reasons,
but did God make deformed,
diseased children, or is it a
natural accident?
Either way, is it better for a
person to grow up being different,
and being treated differently
than anyone else when
they have the chance of being
treated, and becoming healthy;
I believe not. It puts pressure
on the person, on his parents
and on society as a whole.
The Spartans used to kill all
diseased or deformed children
after birth. We have other options,
and if altering their
genes is necessary to make
them normal (of course, altering
the genes before birth in
most cases)
then I believe it
should be done;
otherwise people
will naturally
tend to exclude
them from the
normal' society. And of course, a better
understanding is necessary but what is it
really worth compared to lacking the need
for it?

B i b l i o g r a p h y

http://www.twinsworld.com/bab ytwins/images/copher%20twins%2 0-%20dylan%20&%20cameron.jpg
ht tp://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/grap hics/genome3.jpg
http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter
htt p://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresou rces/Human_Genome/project/abou t.shtml
http://www.rositour.it/ Italia/Liguria/Genova/S.%20Lor enzo_Museo%20del%20Tesoro-Croc e%20degli%20Zaccaria.jpg
http:/ /earn.genetics.utah.edu/units/ biotech/microarray.JPG
http://w ww.bbsrc.ac.uk/life/genomics/w hatis.html
http://www.bcuc.ac.u k/images/pileofbooks.jpg
http:/ /watson.hgen.pitt.edu/humor/jo kes.html
http://www.juliantrubi n.com/cloningjokes.html

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