1. If there was a way of finding out whether I, or anyone in my family, has a genetic disposition that is uncurable, I wouldn't want to know. It is not worth knowing that you have a disease, if you cannot be cured. I would want to live my life to the fullest, and not have to worry about death, or disabilities or sickness. However, there is also another side of this story. If I was to want children, I wouldn't want them to have a chance of getting the disease that I could pass on down to them. That would, in my opinion, be considered selfish. However, all of this depends on the symptoms of the disability and the severeness of it. If the genetic disposition meant a very severe condition, such as cancer, or Alzheimer's, I would want to know, not for my sake, but for the sake of my children. Usually, the more severe the symptoms are, the worser the disease is. So, you could have a genetic disposition, and an illness, but the symptoms might not be severe, so you wouldn't feel you needed a reason to get tested...
2. If a lab needed DNA samples to find a cure for a certain disease, and they wanted mine, of course I would give it to them. Honestly, it doesn't affect me in any way, and it could turn out that my children could develop a disease, later in life, that the scientists could potentially find the cure for. Giving DNA samples in order to find a cure for a certain disease can help thousands of people, and save millions of lives. Personally, I wouldn't ask for any money, because helping out people with such goals as finding cures for deadly diseases should be an act of compassion, and a way to attempt and help the sick in any way possible, not a way to gain more wealth. However, if they did find a gene that could cause a sickness in my DNA, I would want to be informed only in certain cases; if the disease could affect my children, if it was very severe, etc.
3. I do believe that discrimination based on a person's genetic makeup is quite strange, and I do not understand the people who would judge you based on the type of chromosomes you have in your DNA..However, this type of discrimination should be stopped by keeping the DNA information about one person private, and not sharing it with a lot of other people. Also, scientists who know a lot about our DNA should educate other people about it. They should teach people about different diseases that could be found, as well as about the different proteins, genes, etc. The more people know about a certain subject, the less likely it is for them to be superficial and judgemental.
As discussed in the movie that we watched, a lot of living things have very similar genetic makeup, or DNA. For example, isn't it strange that we are 90% similar to yeast in DNA?! DNA is marked by many different letters, that represent the different parts of the DNA. Despite the thousands and thousands of letters, only a small portion of them are actually genes that determine the traits we are going to have. However, is something goes wrong with two, or even one letter, a person could develop a very serious genetic disability. That is partially why the Human Genome Project got started. The Human Genome Project concentrated on finding out all the different letters in our DNA, and making them available to the public, so that different diseases could be more easily discovered, and the cures could be easier to find. However, with the manipulation of human genes, the health of certain individuals could be seriously affected. If even a little thing goes wrong in the manipulation, an even bigger problem could occur (malfunctions, disabilities, etc.) An issue that was raised in the movie was the fact the some scientists are actually patenting certain parts of the human DNA! This means if, for example, a scientist wants to find a cure for a disease that occurs on a part of the gene that is patented by another scientist, he/she will have to pay them in order to conduct research! In my opinion, this is crazy, because all of them should be working together for the benefit of humanity, and for the sake of saving a lot of lives that could be lost due to the genetic malfunctions.
3. I do believe that discrimination based on a person's genetic makeup is quite strange, and I do not understand the people who would judge you based on the type of chromosomes you have in your DNA..However, this type of discrimination should be stopped by keeping the DNA information about one person private, and not sharing it with a lot of other people. Also, scientists who know a lot about our DNA should educate other people about it. They should teach people about different diseases that could be found, as well as about the different proteins, genes, etc. The more people know about a certain subject, the less likely it is for them to be superficial and judgemental.
As discussed in the movie that we watched, a lot of living things have very similar genetic makeup, or DNA. For example, isn't it strange that we are 90% similar to yeast in DNA?! DNA is marked by many different letters, that represent the different parts of the DNA. Despite the thousands and thousands of letters, only a small portion of them are actually genes that determine the traits we are going to have. However, is something goes wrong with two, or even one letter, a person could develop a very serious genetic disability. That is partially why the Human Genome Project got started. The Human Genome Project concentrated on finding out all the different letters in our DNA, and making them available to the public, so that different diseases could be more easily discovered, and the cures could be easier to find. However, with the manipulation of human genes, the health of certain individuals could be seriously affected. If even a little thing goes wrong in the manipulation, an even bigger problem could occur (malfunctions, disabilities, etc.) An issue that was raised in the movie was the fact the some scientists are actually patenting certain parts of the human DNA! This means if, for example, a scientist wants to find a cure for a disease that occurs on a part of the gene that is patented by another scientist, he/she will have to pay them in order to conduct research! In my opinion, this is crazy, because all of them should be working together for the benefit of humanity, and for the sake of saving a lot of lives that could be lost due to the genetic malfunctions.
