I was very reassured by my doctor this morning when he said he had never seen anyone with a blood pressure that high who wasn't brain dead. Thankfully he blamed the machine and not me!
On another unrelated health matter, medical ethics. So many issues surrounding medical ethics are so complicated that I can often not make up my mind either way. The nature of my own research means that we have to be strict about ethical procedures and there is an article today which illustrates why this is necessary. As yet, human tissue is the best way to investigate the workings of the body as well as the causes, prevention and treatment of disease. But what if we were to screen all embryos to avoid people even developing disease? There is a new debate about whether embryos should be screened for certain cancer genes. It sounds great in theory but where does it stop? It's great if it can prevent people developing terminal diseases. There are already techniques out there that would allow the every single gene a person carries to be screened in order to identify genes which may or may not cause disease and my biggest concern is that it would be taken too far. What is the cut off point for saying there is a chance your offspring might develop disease X, 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 10,000? Most diseases are caused by environment and lifestyle as much as genetics.
I guess I'm saying that in cases where there is a strong family history and a very high probability of disease, screening sounds like a way to go. Other than that, it's a no.
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