Aryana Libris

Author : Markolin Caroline
Title : German New Medicine Understanding "Genetic Diseases"
Year : 2010

Link download : Markolin_Caroline_-_German_New_Medicine_Understanding_Genetic_Diseases.zip

Genetics and the Power of a Medical Dogma. The theory of the genetic origin of diseases is one of the most firmly upheld doctrines of today’s medicine. Medical science claims that cancer is brought on by “mistakes in DNA replication”, causing cells to gradually change from normal to “abnormal” and eventually to “malignant” cells. The mapping of cancer genes is thus one of modern medicine’s latest ventures. Modeled after the Human Genome Project, the International Cancer Genome Consortium has been created to coordinate cancer genome sequencing on a large scale. The objective, as clearly stated by Dr. Mike Stratton from the Cancer Genome Project (the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute), is that “by identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments". Recently, British Scientists found 23,000 mutations in lung cancer cases. Curiously, they also found that not all of these mutations cause cancer! Mutations in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are said to increase a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer. Within the next five years, the Consortium plans to map the genomes of yet another 1,500 different breast cancers. “The more breast cancer genomes they map, the better an idea we have of the disease’s causes”, says Dr. Reis-Filho of the Institute of Cancer Research in London (Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2009). Under the guise of “good science”, “prophylactic” measures such as “preventive mastectomies” are recommended “to reduce the chance of developing cancer”. Another “preventive” measure is the “zapping” of the tagged cancer cells, “because a cancer cell is like a person and we must kill it to live”, argues Dana Blankenhorn (Rethinking Health Care). The medical consensus on the genetic origin of diseases also serves as justification for the screening of embryos for “abnormal” genes. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves taking a cell from an embryo at the eight-cell stage of development (around three days old) and testing it. Doctors then “select an embryo free from rogue genes to continue the pregnancy, and discard any whose genetic profile points to future problems. Using PGD is to ensure a baby does not carry an altered gene.”(BBC News, January 8, 2008) All too often, medicine takes it upon itself to “improve” human beings; here again, in spite of the lack of evidence that “defective genes” are necessarily the cause of cancer and a very limited knowledge as to precisely why the genetic changes occur in the first place. ...