Genetic Testing

Kathleen Ingram was pregnant with her second child. Her first baby had been born with cystic fibrosis, a disorder in which the lungs clog easily with mucus and breathing becomes extremely arduous. Because cystic fibrosis is hereditary, Kathleen knew there was a one in four chance her second child would suffer from the same debilitating disease. Early in pregnancy, the Ingrams (not their real name) decided to take advantage of genetic testing.

A recommendation by influential physicians' groups that expectant parents receive counseling about genetic testing for cystic fibrosis--an incurable disease that's often fatal by early adulthood--brings the era of genetic testing a step closer to many families. The new guidelines mean that more parents will learn early in a pregnancy that a woman is at risk of bearing a child with cystic fibrosis.

To UC Irvine Prof. John J. Wasmuth, it is not speculation. It is a certainty. Three years from now a woman who suspects she is pregnant will go to her physician for tests. The physician will scrape a few cells from the 10-week-old fetus and send them off for genetic analysis. It will be routine; the results will come back in only a few days. The baby will be male. He will not have any of the more common, catastrophic birth defects. So far, so good. He will be prone to colon cancer in midlife.

As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case against Myriad Genetics, scientists who are skeptical of the idea of patenting genes said they were hopeful that the justices would overturn the Utah company's claims. "I was on pins and needles the whole time," said Dr. Wayne Grody, director of the Diagnostic Molecular Pathology Laboratory at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, who was present at the arguments. "But at the end I thought, 'The justices really get it' ... I felt that all of them who spoke weren't comfortable with the idea of patenting a gene.

FOR years now, worried Americans -- and even just the medically curious -- have been able to glimpse their potential health future through genetic testing. And until recently, the nearly 1,000 genetic tests on the market have been available mainly through the mainstream medical establishment -- clinics, hospitals and doctors' offices -- and have been cautiously interpreted for lay folks by trained genetic counselors.

President Clinton offered legislation Monday to bar health insurance companies from discriminating against apparently healthy people on the basis of their genetic backgrounds. Clinton said genetic testing is a miracle of science, one that poses the possibility of predicting and curing diseases, such as breast cancer. But, he said, millions of families fear that the results of genetic testing will cause them to lose the health insurance they need to battle disease and illness.

A couple who claim that their daughter was switched with another girl in a hospital maternity ward promised not to seek custody, in exchange for an agreement on genetic testing to settle the dispute. Ernest and Regina Twigg returned from Pennsylvania to Sebring earlier this month to be closer to Kimberly Michelle Mays, the 10-year-old Sarasota girl they say is their daughter.

UC Berkeley announced on Thursday a rollback in its controversial plan for voluntary genetics testing of incoming students, part of an orientation program called "Bring Your Genes to Cal. " In response to a state Public Health Department ruling on how DNA samples should be handled, UC Berkeley scientists reluctantly abandoned the idea to have freshmen and transfer students individually and confidentially learn about three of their own genetic traits....

A DNA test confirmed that one of two babies who were apparently switched at a hospital three years ago was indeed sent home with the wrong parents, a lawyer said Tuesday. The test proved that 3-year-old Rebecca Grace Chittum is the biological daughter of Paula K. Johnson, said Peter Robey, an attorney for the family that took Rebecca home. Johnson has been raising the other 3-year-old, Callie Marie Johnson, as her own. DNA testing on Callie is under way.