Fade the Butcher
12-11-2006, 04:56 PM
A new essay by Armand Leroy. Check the PDF file below.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17139290&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/12/eugenics_again.php#more
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/upload/2006/12/eugenicspaper.pdf
Some info via Razib at ScienceBlogs:
Each year 4 million babies are born within the United States. The expectation of Down Syndrome based upon the rate of chromosomal mutation would be 6,150 babies. Leroi estimates that only 4,370 babies with this condition are born each year, extrapolating from an abortion rate of 29% of fetuses diagnosed with Down Syndrome in Atlanta, GA, and Hawaii (the only places where there are data).
In Western Australia 32% of the fetuses with Down Syndrome were aborted, in South Australia 75%, in Taiwan 80% and in Paris 85%.
Please remember though that Down Syndrome males are sterile, and females far less fertile than the median, so the eugenical effect of this is only epiphenomenal.
Leroi also points out that increased frequency of conception by older mothers has balanced out the eugenical impact of abortions so that the number of individuals with this condition has been constant (i.e., the abortions cut into a larger number of potential Down Syndrome children).
"40% of infants with any one of 11 main congenital disorders were aborted in Europe."
"... in 2002, 20% of fetuses with apparent birth defects were aborted in G8 countries--that is, between 30,000 and 40,000 fetuses."
"In Western Australia, neonatal mortality rates due to congenital deformities declined from 4.36 to 2.75 per 1,000 births in the period from 1980 to 1998. Half of that decline is thought to be due to the increase in abortions of abnormal fetuses...."
In Taiwan, screens for thalassaemia mutations have caused the live-birth prevalence of this disease to drop from 5.6 to 1.21 per 100,000 births over eight years
"...comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) microarrays could be used to screen a single embryo or fetus for thousands of mutations."
Based on the number of known mutations Armand calculates that it should be possible to predict disease to a reasonable confidence in 1 in 252 embryos.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17139290&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/12/eugenics_again.php#more
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/upload/2006/12/eugenicspaper.pdf
Some info via Razib at ScienceBlogs:
Each year 4 million babies are born within the United States. The expectation of Down Syndrome based upon the rate of chromosomal mutation would be 6,150 babies. Leroi estimates that only 4,370 babies with this condition are born each year, extrapolating from an abortion rate of 29% of fetuses diagnosed with Down Syndrome in Atlanta, GA, and Hawaii (the only places where there are data).
In Western Australia 32% of the fetuses with Down Syndrome were aborted, in South Australia 75%, in Taiwan 80% and in Paris 85%.
Please remember though that Down Syndrome males are sterile, and females far less fertile than the median, so the eugenical effect of this is only epiphenomenal.
Leroi also points out that increased frequency of conception by older mothers has balanced out the eugenical impact of abortions so that the number of individuals with this condition has been constant (i.e., the abortions cut into a larger number of potential Down Syndrome children).
"40% of infants with any one of 11 main congenital disorders were aborted in Europe."
"... in 2002, 20% of fetuses with apparent birth defects were aborted in G8 countries--that is, between 30,000 and 40,000 fetuses."
"In Western Australia, neonatal mortality rates due to congenital deformities declined from 4.36 to 2.75 per 1,000 births in the period from 1980 to 1998. Half of that decline is thought to be due to the increase in abortions of abnormal fetuses...."
In Taiwan, screens for thalassaemia mutations have caused the live-birth prevalence of this disease to drop from 5.6 to 1.21 per 100,000 births over eight years
"...comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) microarrays could be used to screen a single embryo or fetus for thousands of mutations."
Based on the number of known mutations Armand calculates that it should be possible to predict disease to a reasonable confidence in 1 in 252 embryos.