Give Your Child the Gift of an Alzheimer's Diagnosis 198
theodp writes "'There's a lot you can do for your child with 99 dollars,' explains Fast Company's Elizabeth Murphy, who opted to get her adopted 5-year-old daughter's genes tested by 23andMe, a startup founded by Anne Wojcicki that's been funded to the tune of $126 million by Google, Sergey Brin (Wojcicki's now-separated spouse), Yuri Milner, and others. So, how'd that work out? 'My daughter,' writes Murphy, 'who is learning to read and tie her shoes, has two copies of the APOE-4 variant, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's. According to her 23andMe results, she has a 55% chance of contracting the disease between the ages of 65 and 79.' So, what is 23andMe's advice for the worried Mom? 'You have this potential now to engage her in all kinds of activities,' said Wojcicki. 'Do you get her focused on her exercise and what she's eating, and doing brain games and more math?' Duke associate professor of public policy Don Taylor had more comforting advice for Murphy. 'It's possible the best thing you can do is burn that damn report and never think of it again,' he said. 'I'm just talking now as a parent. Do not wreck yourself about your 5-year-old getting Alzheimer's. Worry more about the fact that when she's a teenager she might be driving around in cars with drunk boys.'"
55% (Score:3, Insightful)
"she has a 55% chance of contracting the disease between the ages of 65 and 79."
You can avoid that fate, just let here walk on a hill during a thunderstorm with an umbrella.
It's stupid to scare your kid for 65 years.
Re:55% (Score:4, Interesting)
My father has Parkinson's and particpated in the 23andMe study. He has one of the two markers that 23andMe knows about. I happen to have none.
If I knew that I have a high chance of contracting Parkinson's it would change the way I live my life immediately. Instead of waiting until near retirement to travel the world, I'd live out of a suitcase and do it now. I've seen what Parkinson's does to people without the luxury of having endless amounts of money to spend on treatments. It turns you into a giant infant.
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Having a low chance of contracting Parkinson doesn't mean you don't have a high chance of contracting one of the hundreds of debilitating or lethal diseases out there. You could also die before retirement from thousands of other causes.
Why are you still on /. instead of packing that suitcase now?
Re:55% (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's important for you to travel the world before you die, then do it right away even if you *don't* have the markers for some degenerative genetic disease. See to your priorities as soon as is humanly possible, at least until they develop a test that tells whether you'll be hit by a bus on your 50th birthday.
The advice "carpe diem" ("seize the day") is as good now as it was 2000 years ago when Horace wrote those words [wikisource.org]:
You should not ask it, it is wrong to know impious things, what end the
gods will have given to me, to you, O Leuconoe, and do not try
Babylonian calculations [i.e., astrology]. How much better it is to endure whatever will be,
whether Jupiter has allotted to you more winters or [whether this one is] the last,
which now weakens upon the opposed rocks of the Tyrrhenian
Sea: may you be wise, strain your wines [i.e., prepare it for immediate drinking], and because of short life
prune long anticipation. While we are speaking, envious life
will have fled:seize the day, trusting the future as little as possible.
Re:55% (Score:5, Informative)
The advice "carpe diem" ("seize the day") is as good now as it was 2000 years ago when Horace wrote those words [wikisource.org].
The advice "carpe diem" meant something different 2000 years ago when Horace wrote those words. Then, he wrote "carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" -- or, as your translation states, "seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next". His meaning was more along the lines of the ant vs the grasshopper in Aesop's fable. Seize the day, prepare for your future, work while you're healthy, make hay while the sun shines, and pack your 401k with as much as you can afford (or at least enough to get your full company match). Make sure your future is secure today, because you don't know what'll happen to you tomorrow.
Nowadays, "carpe diem" is usually interpreted to mean something akin to your post. Go see the world, party with your friends, have a great time, even YOLO. It can still be good advice (you might get Alzheimer's when you're 50, so see the world today while you can appreciate it) but the fact remains that the meaning of the exhortation has changed in the modern era.
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Well, the thing about literary opinions is that they can't be entirely disproved, but I don't think that a reading of Ovid's poem supports your construction. I do endorse preparing for the future, though. It's just that speaking from experience youth passes a lot faster than you expect.
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I hate to break it to you but there's loads of ways to lose the chance to travel other than parkinsons.
if traveling is your dream, travel now a little, so you'll at least know if the food is crap in bingaladangstan when you're bleeding to death after a traffic accident.
and the world is unifying in customs every day. that's not a bad thing but if you want to see crazy shit then today is the day to go.
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My father has Parkinson's and particpated in the 23andMe study. He has one of the two markers that 23andMe knows about. I happen to have none.
If I knew that I have a high chance of contracting Parkinson's it would change the way I live my life immediately. Instead of waiting until near retirement to travel the world, I'd live out of a suitcase and do it now.
You are delusional, you are lying to yourself.
You wouldnt change duck, you would find a way to rationalize just like you did now.
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If you have a high risk of Parkinson's, the best advice is to avoid high impact sports (football, soccer, stuff where your head gets hit), explosions (military), and living in cities where they spray for bugs in apartments or rural areas where pesticides are frequent.
That's useful advice.
Living in fear won't change anything.
Re:55% (Score:5, Insightful)
You wouldn't change the way you live if you knew your expiration date? I certainly would. My wife and I try to save as much as we can because we have to assume that we will live to 80 or 90. If I took a blood test that said I was dead by 55, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars that I'd spend doing something else.
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SO, you'd basically leave your wife in the lurch?
Hell, if I knew I was going to die soon, I'd start making meth or something, to make sure my wife had a comfortable widowhood (is that a word?)
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LOL, good point. We are speaking hypothetically, are we not? So I can give her the same disease :)
Re:55% (Score:4, Insightful)
It still lets me plan my life. More data is good, and you generally play the odds. I'm not planning to live to 100, even though I might.
Anyway, the choices aren't "destitute" and "well-off"... that's a false dichotomy. There is an infinite gradation between the two, and I'm talking about picking something along that continuum. At least some of my retirement will include an annuity as a safety net, no matter when I'm supposed to die. If they invent a potion that gets me to 130, I'll still have my annuity.
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What race will kill us? This is important because we are different races and so it might only affect one of us.
Re:55% (Score:4, Insightful)
I would like to go to Europe some day. Sure, I have the means to do it right now but that doesn't mean it's a good idea because it would seriously set back other goals I have. By putting off a trip to Europe for now, I can achieve all of my goals eventually. However, if I had a condition that would make long-term goals impossible, then sure, I would go to Europe now because I would no longer be sacrificing the now-impossible goals.
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However, if I had a condition
Now suppose you paid to find out about this condition twenty years from now rather than today and there was no repercussions for the delay in test results except perhaps a slight reshuffling of priorities? Even if the test doesn't change in price, that's still a substantial time value benefit from kicking that can 20 years down the road.
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I would like to go to Europe some day. Sure, I have the means to do it right now but that doesn't mean it's a good idea because it would seriously set back other goals I have. By putting off a trip to Europe for now, I can achieve all of my goals eventually. However, if I had a condition that would make long-term goals impossible, then sure, I would go to Europe now because I would no longer be sacrificing the now-impossible goals.
What happens if you spend all that money now and a perfect cure is found in 10 years for whatever condition you have? Where would that leave you?
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> this game called Life always ends in Sudden Death
No, it doesn't, and that's part of what this topic is all about. Sometimes life ends slowly - tragically slowly, slipping away little at a time, day by day. Sometimes that slipping away is purely mental, leaving a perfectly serviceable body behind, with barely any of You in it.
Maybe if you're single, "Carpe Diem" works just fine, but if you have wife, kids, etc, do you really want to "play yourself penniless" and then saddle them with the cost of carin
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And there you touch upon the key element - physician-assisted suicide only works if everyone involved is ethically beyond reproach.
How many people do you, personally, know that would never, und
Eggs chocolate and dairy (Score:2)
I was rooting around in some old papers my parents had kept and found an allergy report on myself that had been done when I was 4. It said I needed to avoid Eggs, Chocolate, and Dairy. I love all those things and know I'm not allergic to them. I'm so glad my parents ignored the report. If they had deprived me of Diary it's very likely I would not be able to eat dairy now. The point was the report is a probability, like gene markers, It says I probably was allergic to these things within the error marg
Re:55% (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not about scaring your kid for 65 years. It's about having 65 years of warning. Perhaps just a nudge in the right direction now, like a focus on cognitive endeavors rather than keeping up on the latest Disney drivel, can encourage a life of improvement to the brain. When Alzheimers' does come around, there's ample cognitive ability to spare, so the gradual decline toward incapability might just outlast your kid's life.
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It's not about scaring your kid for 65 years. It's about having 65 years of warning. Perhaps just a nudge in the right direction now, like a focus on cognitive endeavors rather than keeping up on the latest Disney drivel, can encourage a life of improvement to the brain. When Alzheimers' does come around, there's ample cognitive ability to spare, so the gradual decline toward incapability might just outlast your kid's life.
Well, shoot, if that's all we're waiting for, let me do everyone's kids a favor:
Hey parents! At some point in the future, all your children are going to die! It will come sooner for some than others, so please teach them to not waste their lives on pointless drivel!
How's that?
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No, you see, my kid is special. All those other kids of those other parents aren't nearly as smart as mine. My kid's already so much ahead of everyone else because of his natural talents, that he can afford to waste time while the others catch up! My kid is also immune to all preventable disease, completely safe in a car, a champion at every sport (except the ones where the opponents have to cheat to beat him), and next year he's probably going to start modeling. So go ahead, and give your blanket advice to
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It's stupid to scare your kid for 65 years.
If she's that much at risk for Alzheimer's, you're probably only scaring her for about 15 minutes.
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This is true for pretty much all medical screening.
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I never understand this reaction.
The assumption you're making is that I would be flat out terrified or anxious, day in, day out, of my tragic diagnosis.
Putting aside for a second that human psychology doesn't normally work that way at all, and that people often end up accepting such things - it gives me knowledge and helps me better plan my future. It gives me much greater odds that I will come to the effective end of my life having completed what I wanted to.
The only thing I would have supposedly lost is s
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Don't be so sure that those are really your grandparents. Illegitimacy rates in Western culture run around 1 in 30, and you have two parents. That's a roughly 1/10 chance* that one of your grandparents aren't really a blood relative.
* I could have the math wrong, but it's probably close enough for a Slashdot discussion - your mom has as 1/30 chance of being illegitimate combined with the chance that your dad has a 1/30 chance of being illegitimate combined with your own 1/30 chance of being illegitimate.
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No, all four of your grandparents (parents of your parents) are blood relatives.
Of course, your grandparents may not be who you think they are - just because you call your father's father "grandpa" doesn't make it so....
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#1 Having illegitimate parents is not some random 1/30 curse that befalls you because you're now part of a western culture, stop making it sound like you'll never know if your grandparents are your grandparents b/c your parents cheated on each other. Based on demographics, wealth, culture, education... the numbers change dramatically.
So you have better data for Mr. Anonymous Coward? I have no data on the faithfulness of his parents, and in fact was even guessing that he was from a Western culture.
#2 The term "illegitimate" doesn't only cover parents practicing infidelity in hidden closets, it covers children who belong to parents that aren't married. So yes, that includes divorce, "whoops", adoption, and modern family who never planned on getting married.
I was specifically referring to "paternity fraud", though using a poor choice of words. You are correct that "illegitimate" is the wrong terminology here. My numbers, however, seem to be about right:
Some Perspective (Score:3)
I suggest to prevent your child getting Alzheimers you spend less time worrying about their state of mind when they reach old age and more time worrying about their long journey there.
It would suck to take precautions to prevent them from having that later in life, and have the kid snuff it before even getting there.
Re:Some Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
The gift to my kid would be for me to get the test, never tell a soul about it, and make plans to deal with Alzheimer's if I'm going to get it.
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Kind of like how you should put the mask on your own face before helping the person sitting next to you on a plane. Its all well and good to help others but, sometimes the best help you can give is first making sure you wont become the next burden.
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This is why the insightful mod has been created. I am with you 100% on this one.
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Welcome to the time when parents live their kids' life for them.
It's not like it's anything new, never heard of parents that spend more time planning their kids' future (and of course even present), to make sure "they got it better" (for varying definitions of "better")?
Speaking as a parent (Score:4, Funny)
'I'm just talking now as a parent. Do not wreck yourself about your 5-year-old getting Alzheimer's. Worry more about the fact that when she's a teenager she might be driving around in cars with drunk boys.'
Yeah, that's much more comforting. Thanks, Professor!
Re:Speaking as a parent (Score:5, Funny)
'I'm just talking now as a parent. Do not wreck yourself about your 5-year-old getting Alzheimer's. Worry more about the fact that when she's a teenager she might be driving around in cars with drunk boys.'
Yeah, that's much more comforting. Thanks, Professor!
well on the plus side, driving around in a car with drunk boys is clinically proven to reduce one's risk of acquiring Alzheimer's.
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We shouldn't be worried about that. I'm more worried she might be doing the things I did as a teenager!
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I'm not. I don't have the foggiest clue what it means and somehow I don't think knowing it would enrich my life...
If there are things you can do now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another good use of the information in this report: enroll the kid in some longitudinal studies on the progression of Alzheimer's, if such things exist and look for children that young.
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More information is very often a bad thing:
1. Incorrect information can lead you to make exactly the opposite choices to the ones you would have made with correct information, or with no information
2. Incomplete information can lead you to make incorrect assumptions which you wouldn't make if you had no information
3. Information on probabilities is not easy to correctly interpret even for a professional statistician
4. Ignorance is bliss - knowing you are doomed is not likely to lead to greater emotional hea
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Generally, the more mentally fit and alert she starts out, the longer she'll stay healthy and functional. Exercise and a good diet may also help. Of course, those are generally good things to do, but for some people they have much less importance than for others. If she knows she is predisposed for Alzheimer's, she knows that these choices are likely to be much more important for her than for average people.
Alternatively, she can also simply decide not to bother and instead to live life faster and more int
What exercise and what's a good diet, anyway? (Score:2)
A lot of evidence suggest that Alzheimer's is "type 3 diabetes", so does that mean that a "good diet" is what we've been told is a good diet since the late 1960s (high carbohydrate, low fat), or is a "good diet" what is suggested by low-carbohydrate advocates suggest, one high in fat and very low in carbohydrates (a ketogenic diet)?
And what kind of exercise? From what I've read, there's not a lot to suggest that exercise has much influence on weight loss, so perhaps just "being active" (walking 2-3 miles
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What if the test reported nothing wrong and the kid turned into a fat lazy slob because they didn't have a special incentive to lead a healthy lifestyle?
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I'm part of a longitudinal study on early-onset alz (I'm 53). I doubt the study would want to look at anyone much younger, but it's being run out of Indiana University Hospital Neurology in Indianapolis, if anyone cares to inquire.
Fundamental Question (Score:3)
This is one of the fundamental questions of genetic screening.
So what if you find out you have some future likelihood of ending up with a serious illness that you cannot prevent?
I don't think I would want to know.
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I don't understand the logic of people like you. What if you find out you have a serious that you can treat? Suppose you have an incurable illness but it won't hit for 60 years? 60 years is a long time in medical research. Suppose it' incurable but you can live your life in such a way as to reduce the chances of it?
Do you also drive to work with a blind fold on because other drivers make you nervous?
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Do you also drive to work with a blind fold on because other drivers make you nervous?
That's a pretty silly analogy.
I choose to drive every day DESPITE it being fundamentally the riskiest thing I do in my life, because it does not benefit me to sit at home and worry about my potential fate.
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The summary made it sound like this test is specifically for Alzheimer's, and if Alzheimer's is not really preventable and likely won't come on until the kid is 65 and I'm dead, how does knowing help *anyone*?
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I don't think it helps in any way to know.
Imagine you find out today that you have some sort of disease, that you cannot do anything about it and that it will eventually kill you in, say, 30 or 40 years. Hell, even if I knew it wouldn't change a thing. I can't do jack about it, so why bother thinking about it? I will of course keep up to date with developments in the area and certainly any kind of breakthrough in the field will have my undivided attention, but aside of that, what's there that I could possib
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This is one of the fundamental questions of genetic screening.
So what if you find out you have some future likelihood of ending up with a serious illness that you cannot prevent?
I don't think I would want to know.
You do already do have a likelihood of ending up with a serious illness that you cannot prevent. You will most likely die of a terminal illness late in life, unless you are unlucky enough to suffer a fatal accident before you contract whatever disease is waiting for you. But, I do agree with you, I don't think I would want to know because I would not want that knowledge gnawing in the back of my mind for the rest of my life, and it would probably affect my choices in unwise ways. I'm approaching age 40 n
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Then I'm 55, obese, and broke.
Welcome to America! So are we!
Well, that seals her fate, I guess. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because there's clearly no chance of significant progress on Alzheimer's treatment, prevention, or reversal over the next SIXTY YEARS.
If I'd received a diagnosis like that in my teens, it might well have lent me some much-needed career focus. As it is, I sort of happened into a position where I was contributing to Alzheimer's research (in a very small way), and eventually drifted back out of it. With this kind of motivation, I might have pushed a lot harder, and stayed engaged.
Seriously, if I had to pick a terrible disease to contract sixty years down the road, Alzheimer's would be high on my list. It's high-profile, there's a huge amount of research being done, and there are lots of promising avenues for progress.
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My thoughts exactly. This Alzheimer breakthrough [caribbean360.com] I read about yesterday.
Re:Well, that seals her fate, I guess. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that but there is a bit of a "its how you look at it". A lot of evidence on the disease indicates that there are likely several factors involved and that the damage starts decades before symptoms. That means that.... sometime in her 30s or 40s is really when she needs the breakthrough by....but
it also means that she can be mindful of it.
Take this: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/03/use-it-or-lose-it/ [harvard.edu]
Evidence that using the mind, and and being stimulated by different environments (something that we naturally tend to do less of as we age and get into lifelong habbits) helps:
Seems like evidence to me that being mindful of propensity for the disease early does, right now, give some possibilities for mitigating the worst of it down the road. Maybe not now as she is 5 years old, but later in her 30s and 40s.
Kinda makes me think I should switch up hobbies or....drop acid again.
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Evidence that using the mind, and and being stimulated by different environments (something that we naturally tend to do less of as we age and get into lifelong habbits) helps...
Isn't this just good advice regardless? Why put the sword over the kid's head? Just encourage them be life-long learners and try new challenging things every chance they get?
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My UID? Did... did you just fall for what amounts to an injection attack?
I appreciate the horror of Alzheimer's as much as anyone who has higher-than-normal empathy, a good imagination, and no direct experience. So, no, I probably don't get it as viscerally as you do. But sixty years is a very long time. If I thought it likely I had sixty more years, and if the post below yours had not been made AC, I'd definitely take that bet on a cure -- or, more accurately, effective treatment and prevention of the synd
Retirement / estate planning (Score:2)
If I had such a diagnosis I would likely dramatically alter my estate planning strategies. I can see several scenarios where that information would be very useful.
The 23andme kit is on my list of things to purchase. I do wish it could test for more things, but I suppose that's in the works.
Don't test kids. (Score:2)
Test yourself, and test fetuses. Procreation without genetic testing in this day and age is terribly irresponsible. But if you're going to help tidy up the gene pool, you have to do the testing before you procreate.
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If I was aborted, I'd never experience the loss. Death is scary. But if there was never any me to experience anything, there would be no fear.
Besides, if I was aborted in favor of a healthy fetus, that person would be in favor of aborting fetuses with genetic defects, for the exact reason you think I should be against it.
This line of reasoning is nonsensical. Out of the millions of sperm in an ejaculate, only one gets to fertilize an egg. The flap of a butterfly's wing could change which sperm fertilize
"There's no gene for fate." (Score:3)
-- Vincent, Gattaca
Driving? (Score:2)
Hold on there, buckoo (Score:5, Funny)
Now she's in a self driving car with drunk boys, and nobody has to keep there hands on the wheel?
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I say.
Prostate screening discussion yesterday with doc (Score:4, Interesting)
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I had my annual physical with my family doctor yesterday. He told me that he no longer does, nor does he recommend, prostate cancer screening based on recent studies. Most of the prostate cancers detected are not the ones that will kill you, but it's not possible to test for that without an invasive biopsy that is very uncomfortable. If you jump right into treating the cancer, that is also very uncomfortable and potentially debilitating.
Caution definitely needs to be taken in treatment of this kind of cancer.
But why not test for it? Wouldn't it be a good idea to monitor the size/shape of anything which was found?
Mammograms are the same way (Score:2)
There are two main types of cancers Mammograms detect:
A slow-growing type you'd be able to notice yourself (because of the lump) before it's too late
The fast-growing type where treatment is largely futile, as it starts spreading before it can be caught by a mammogram.
There ARE some cancers detected where mammograms are useful, but the cost of the scans, biopsies, and worry for all the false positives mean it's an awful expensive (in more ways than one) way to save lives.
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My understanding is that the course of action if there is a positive screening result is worse on average for a patient than getting prostate cancer, when adjusted for the various risks. The treatment has risks of complications, and the risk of actually getting prostate cancer is low, so you're actually better off ignoring it.
It isn't about ignoring cancer - it is about ignoring a likely false positive when the reaction to the test is likely to cause other problems.
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Times change.
It used to be that Appendectomies were done for almost no reason at all.
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1. your doctor is an idiot
Actually, there are MANY doctors who question the value of prostate screening. If you get a positive result, you aren't necessarily going to get cancer, but you WILL end up getting treatment. The treatment is not without its own risks. So you have the low risk of getting cancer and dying on the one hand, and the much higher risk of having other problems as a result of treatment on the other hand.
It isn't a clear-cut decision, and most patients probably aren't really given all the facts. You'd be amazed
Slashvertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with latter-quoted guy: there's a HUGE business out of exploiting the (natural) fears of new parents. I have 4 kids, and our level of paranoia on the first one was crazy.
The idea that you need to drop $100 to see if there's any likelihood that your kid will eventually contract Alzheimers is ludicrous.
- there's no certainty about these numbers, it's about as reliable as the weather
- even if they WERE reliable, there's no firm understanding of genetic vs environmental factors
- and even if there was a firm understanding, there are no developed therapies/routines that are known to have ANY impact on long term development of the condition.
This is just marketing FUD to paranoid parents. BELIEVE ME, you're going to have about a million other far more immediate concerns getting your kids to the point where they move out on their own, and thereafter.
Personally, I'd be flipping delighted if someone could guarantee to me that my kids will live long enough for Alzheimers to be of the faintest relevance. Seriously.
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> drop $100 to see if there's any likelihood that your kid will eventually contract Alzheimers
100$ is for the whole range of genetic tests, not just Alzheimers. Just saying.
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The idea that you need to drop $100 to see if there's any likelihood that your kid will eventually contract Alzheimers is ludicrous.
The $100 is for a fairly comprehensive SNP analysis, not just an Alzheimer's test. Also, you have to read a big disclaimer before they'll even tell you whether you have a risk for Alzheimer's for all the reasons that are coming up here. By default they won't tell you anything about it.
How does this change anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then newsflash: you may be a really shitty parent.
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Do you really need to know your child is at risk of Alzheimer's before you decide to teach them healthy habits and encourage brain activity?
For me it's kind of the opposite. Why bother teaching the kid that stuff if he's just going to forget it anyway?
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many genes dont express themselves (Score:3)
Fund research (Score:2)
If there was much degree of accuracy, it may end up working the way open source does - developers scratch their own itches. Some people may be more likely to fund alzheimer's research if they knew their son or daughter was likely to get it. Or they themselves were.
The negative effect of this might be that harder to predict and/or less common diseases would get less funding.
Meanwhile (Score:3)
In 60 years they'll probably have a very expensive medication you can take to moderate the effects of the disease. That's the way it's going it seems in Big Pharma, they won't cure you but they'll milk you for a very expense prescription for the rest of your life.
In the meantime, this parent should be taken out and flogged mercilessly because you've now instilled a fear in your child no matter how you try and mask it. You'll now treat that child differently because you view them differently. This whole 23andme bullshit is another way to separate you from your money for not a lot of benefit. Now ancestry.com is using it so you can find your genetic roots as well. You may as well go to the Mall and get your Biorhythm chart built out for you because you're born with a set of genes and unless there are cures for all these things that are genetically linked, knowing that you'll die at a certain time or have a certain disease has more meaning later on in life and will create unnecessary worry and burden on you and your loved ones. While you're on this planet with it's dysfunctional economies and governments where war is preferrable to peace, enjoy life to its fullest and every day of your life because you could also get run over by a truck walking across the US on an honor walk for your son. [nbcnews.com]
Teach Your Kids RIGHT! (Score:2)
Education on relative risks is crucial to rational living. What is your daughter most likely to get & WHEN?
When people are in their prime years, the CDC says 120 million US citizens have STDs; 1 out of 3 adults or more. 1 out of 3 will get heart disease, kidney & pancreas/diabetes. All of these can severely degrade ones ability to live & work and kill prematurely.
So what does your daughter really need to focus on to avoid MAJOR problems in her prime productive years.
Statistical probabilities tell you... (Score:2)
Statistical probabilities tell you EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYONE and yet NOTHING ABOUT ANYONE.
Yes, if you take 1,000 people like your daughter then of those who live to age 65 or whatever, just about 550 of them are going to get Alzheimer's.
But each individual will have an ACTUAL rate of the disease of exactly 0% or 100%, and that 55% chance actually gives you NO information about which you will be.
And without those gene variations, she still might have a 10% say chance of getting the disease.
Behind the screen
Ugh, the title (Score:2)
Much as I dislike both, the "GOP system" is different from the status quo.
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Yeah, it's worse.
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If we're using the hypothetical straw-republicans that live in my head: their plan is to keep an emergency supply of healthy poor minorities to vivisect for organs in case a rich person gets sick.
If we're using the the real world: Obamacare is essentially a republican plan except Obamacare adds subsidies so that the working poor who have to buy insurance can afford it.
cure worse than the disease (Score:2)
First of all, it's not clear that this is a problem that needs addressing. In a free market, parents would buy child health insurance prior to getting a child that would cover such risks. In fact, in some countries that's how it works: your kids are automatically on the parents' policy, and they have the option of continuing coverage. All you really need for that to work is to legally prevent insurance companies from weaseling out of their obligations once they get more information than when they had when t
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The problem with paying for this kind of welfare out of risk-blind insurance payments is that you end up making insurance blind to preventable pre-existing conditions as well, removing a strong incentive for people to stay healthy.
Does that mean we should replace the current warning labels on cigarettes with this?
"Smoking Causes Health Insurance Premiums to Rise"
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Or: "Buy this and you won't be able to afford a new iPhone. Which one is more important to you?"
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While the issue of people staying healthy is an important one (and should not be ignored), Alzheimers is a great example of a non-preventable condition.
So the ACTUAL conundrum here is this:
1) Do alzheimers/cancer sufferers (including/especially the poor and uninsured) deserve treatment? Is it a human rights issue? Or even one of ethics?
2) If so, who pays for it?
This is the issue. You either decide that some people won't be covered and will simply starve to death on the sidewalk, or you cover them, whic
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Preventative measures (or the lack thereof) are also a problem around here in Europe, in our "socialized healthcare paradise". After literally decades our insurances finally caught on that it's cheaper to pay people to get checked for diseases early so if people are on the road to an early grave they can now easily and more importantly cheaply be kept alive instead of having to resort to expensive measures later on (like, say, pay for comparably cheap blood pressure medicine now than having to pay for insan
Re:cure worse than the disease (Score:5, Informative)
If they could now find out that it's cheaper to find tumors early and have them removed rather than keeping the patient alive that year or two he still lives after it's discovered and determined to be terminal...
Part of the US's vaunted 5 year cancer survival rates vs European single payer systems isn't due to screenings leading to earlier treatment, its due to the disease running the same course over the same period of years and killing the same number of people but being detected earlier in the progression. Imagine a deadly cancer for which there are early screening tests but no treatments at all. The screening typically finds the cancer 4-8 years before death, otherwise the cancer is usually diagnosed via symptoms 1-4 years before death. One country uses the screening test, the other does not. Guess which one has a better 5-year survival rate?
That's an extreme analogy of course, and screening does save lives, but screening can also artificially inflate survival statistics. Cancer mortality rates are the way to go, and overall the US is more or less tied with the EU. For the most preventable common cancer (lung), the US is actually worse than the EU:
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/how-do-we-rate-the-quality-of-the-us-health-care-system-disease-care/ [theinciden...nomist.com]
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Keeping people from dying on the sidewalk is easy: you provide terminal hospice care for them, which is comparatively cheap and the humane thing to do.
Expensive medical care has little to do with preventing death or keeping people healthy; there are dozens of nations that pay a fraction what the US pays with comparable or better health outcomes. Money in the US medical system goe
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Name those countries with better health outcomes. What fraction have a single-payer system?
I would wager it is almost all. But I'm curious, I'm not actually certain.
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Also, people "dying on the sidewalk" is a bit polemic, but it illustrates the point. Someone with a simple mild case of diabetes will die of gangrene in their feet in a matter of a year or two. Sure, you can provide them hospice while they die of something that was treatable almost 100 years ago, or you can get them insulin and antibiotics and you will notice that they'll then continue to live for 5-10 (or more years).
Of course, you could kick them out of "hospice" and then they would be back on the sidew
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> he problem with paying for this kind of welfare out of risk-blind insurance payments is that you end
> up making insurance blind to preventable pre-existing conditions as well, removing a strong
> incentive for people to stay healthy.
I understand that theory, I don't buy it. Too simple and ignores the fact that diseases themselves are much stronger incentive. Do you REALLY think that many people are just like "Well if I smoke and get lung cancer, insurance will pay so its ok"? Do you really think t
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No. What people actually think is: "I won't get lung cancer", and since it's 20-40 years off, they don't care. The beauty of insurance is that it translates this long term risk that people ignore into short term costs that they understand: "Smoke, and your insurance rates go up 70% right away." Of course,
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The problem is that in a free market people sell their work force cheaper than they actually can if they want to participate in what should be the minimum living standard of a western world.
When people need X money to live today, to pay their rent, their food, their power and to make other ends meet, you will find people willing to work for X. That also means that this is what will be paid. But that in turn means that these people will have no money to put aside for unexpected events, for retirement, for he
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Just you wait 'til we can predict with some certainty how long someone lives and you'll instantly get someone who decides that it's a waste of resources to educate someone 'cause he will be dead before his working could recover the cost.
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Frosted Flakes cure cancer too... They're Great!
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Or women could be made "obsolete" (whatever that means).
Because if I have the tech readily available to "artificially create" to produce "Superior Sperm" (whatever that means) then it's not to much of a stretch that I could also use an "artificial womb" or artificial surrogate.
In any case, it's always amusing when people begin to question the way Mother Nature designed things. (yes I am aware that my writing implies a conscious effort on Natures part and clashes with my latter comment.)
As though somehow Ma