Discrimination and Designer Plagues

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine may soon be joining an ambitious project to map the "Jewish" genome. The possible repercussions of this endeavor are limited in their horror only by human imagination. Follow me through the science and discover for yourselves that this is no exaggeration.

On the surface, this project seems harmless, beneficial even, and the motives are relatively simple. For a geneticist, this is an opportunity to study a semi-isolated gene pool. While many people have left the Jewish community through assimilation, comparably few have entered over the centuries. The only ways to introduce new genes into the Jewish community are either through mutations, which are pretty rare, or through outsiders marrying in and bringing their new genes with them. The persecution suffered by Jews over the past millennia limited the number of willing converts, thus precluding the entrance of outsiders and their genes, while leading to the genetic isolation of the Jewish community.

The regular Jewish scientist/researcher sees in this project the opportunity to study problems close to his heart, the medical problems of the Jewish community. He hopes this can lead to a greater understanding of diseases that mainly affect Jews, like Tay-sachs and Gouche's, and that this new understanding will lead to a cure. In fact, many Jews are advocating the launch of this project without fully realizing the possible consequences.

Some of these consequences have already surfaced. A study of the ashkenazic women of Silver Spring, MD, revealed an alarmingly high incidence of two Breast Cancer genes: BRCA1 and BRCA2. While neither of these two genes guarantees that a carrier will develop cancer, their risk of developing cancer is exceptionally high. These two genes became known as "Jewish" genes because they occur relatively frequently in the Jewish population.

Insurance companies have already moved to adjust their rates to reflect this newly discovered risk in Jewish women. If a woman's positive result is revealed to the insurance company they immediately raise their rates. Even if the results are not revealed or a Jewish woman is not tested for these genes, she will still pay a higher premium as this new rate structure develops around this risk.

This is not just a problem for the Jewish woman. Men will face the same problem as their genes are heavily studied and thoroughly explored.

Employers will take genetic tests into account. They want employees who will stay healthy and be able to contribute to their company for many years. A perception of Jews as a diseased people will, in effect, lead to employer discrimination against Jews for what they will justify as a practical financial cause because who wants to hire someone who always gets sick? The situation is worse if an employer offers insurance coverage because his rates go up with each incident of cancer among the employees. No employer wants to pay higher rates and if they feel they can avoid higher payments by not hiring "risky" Jews, they will again discriminate against Jews.

There is no law preventing this kind of discrimination from either the insurance companies or employers.

However, the scariest possible consequence, a "jew bomb," involves a discovery announced by researchers studying biological weapons. They claim to have the ability to tailor their warfare agents so they will only affect people with certain genes. They demonstrated, and further research supported, their customizing technique in two ways. These genes can activate the disease, causing everyone with the activator genetic sequence to suffer the effects and leaving those without the sequence unaffected. Or, the genes can inhibit the disease leaving those with the sequence unaffected while the disease ravages the rest of the population.

As we study Jewish genes and their secrets are revealed to the public, we are providing our enemies with the ability to create plagues designed to kill only Jews. Delivery of this agent could be as simple as dumping it into an upstate reservoir and would result in a virtual wipeout of New York City's Jews.

No other ethnic group is undergoing such genetic scrutiny. While the temptation to look for possible cures is hard to resist, there are currently no effective techniques for treating any genetic disease. Our research just provides us with additional problems, no solutions: We know BRCA1 may lead to cancer, and we can easily test for it, but then what? A woman with a positive result has no recourse, only worry.

So, is there any purpose served by testing for this and countless other harmful genes? How about revealing the results of these tests to a patient?

Many ethicist say no.

Instead of spending our money finding more problems, we should concentrate on finding solutions, effective treatments whose techniques might apply across the broad spectrum of genetic diseases.

It appears that we must approach this like JEOPARDY!, knowing the tentative answers before we go after the questions.