Tay-Sachs disease

Okay, so that's good or bad.

For example, if I have sickle cell or Tay-Sachs, less likely Tay-Sachs, but if I have one of these that you have identified the gene and I'm a full human being, you can remove those disease symptoms from me and the disease entirely, but I still carry that into my offspring, correct?

Indeed, yeah.

So

Behind closed doors.

And so I think that's why our whole morality has to change.

We have to say, what are true disabilities, such as having Tay-Sachs or sickle cell, and what are things that we may, that society may cause to be disabilities, but shouldn't be? And I think we have to make sure that we don't label things as bad just because society has prejudices.

Because as you said...

And there's also PGTM, pre-implantation genetic testing for monogenic conditions.

And that could be things like the BRAC variants that can put you at elevated risk of breast cancer, Tay-Sachs, which is a much, much worse disease, a protein folding disorder, et cetera.

And yeah, the idea is a single gene, monogenic, can cause these outcomes.

And in some cases, just one parent elevates the risk.

Most polygenic traits are not going to be like that.

It's usually going to be monogenic.

If you had Tay-Sachs, most people just choose not to implant.

That's just for obvious reasons.

And I said to this individual, what are you going to teach them? and this individual said to me, I'm gonna go by the anthropological associations, I can't remember the, whatever the, I can't remember what it is, the name of it is.

I'm gonna go by their finding that race is a cultural construct And I remember I asked a couple of questions like, what about Tay-Sachs syndrome? What about sickle cell anemia, et cetera? And as I was asking this individual questions, my buddy kicks me under the table with the idea that if I would have continued the conversation or the question, even though this person had a PhD in philosophy, I would have been hauled before the diversity office.

But my question to you is, The institutions are so corrupt now.

If I had said to this individual, I think Carolyn Roos, we invited her on her show, the person who heads, she's a black female who heads the American Anthropological Association, said, this organization is ideologically corrupt, they've been captured, this is not true.

A range of test panels is now available to screen couples to see if there are carriers of genetic mutations that might lead to disease, some of which are especially prevalent in specific genetic groups, such as Jews with ancestry from a particular region.

Genetic testing first came to the fore in the late 20th century, when it became possible to screen for Tay-Sachs, a painful genetic disease in which children do not survive toddlerhood.

Like many genetic diseases, Tay-Sachs can be passed on only if both parents are carriers, in which case each child has a 25% chance of being born with the condition.

Therefore, it can be prevented by avoiding marriage between carriers.

In 1972, Rav Moshe Feinstein permitted testing for Tay-Sachs compatibility prior to marriage, provided the information is kept quiet.

He writes in Yigro Moshe Eben HaEzer 410, If there is to be checked for Tay-Sachs disease before marriage, even if it is a small disease, children are born like this, and it is necessary to say about it, that it will be fine with Hashem to take it.

He says to Rashi in Chumash, there, that he will go with him in peace, and he will wait for him, and he will not wait for the future.

But it's clear and simple that you have to do it in hate.

Can you imagine? By the mid-19th century, fall festivals were common, but it's when Irish immigrants appeared in the US in the late 1800s that Halloween really becomes popular.

Although having been Catholic for centuries, most of the Irish carried with them both the recessive gene for Tay-Sachs disease, as well as many ancient Celtic beliefs and traditions.

As they integrated into American society, these traditions transformed Halloween into both an American holiday, as well as the start of the fiscal year for the American Diabetes Association.

Today, people all over the world celebrate with festivals, parades, and emergency insulin.

Right, right.

Because for our listeners, Mitch and I are both carriers of Tay-Sachs.

And so I knew... right away that she was a girl when I found out she was healthy.

And then with Jonah, I knew he was a boy because we only made boy embryos.

With Binny, we didn't do IVF, but then because whatever, the Tay-Sachs thing, we decided to do IVF with PGD and then tested the embryos to only use one that was not, did not have Tay-Sachs.

And all of our embryos, both, all of the ones, including ones with Tay-Sachs and not are all boys.

That's crazy.

Like I made like a million boys in Binny.

But I do think that practically speaking, when we actually get down to like brass tacks, I mean, that's where a need for nuance comes in because we all live in the gray to an extent.

But just because we live in the gray to an extent doesn't mean that because I don't have a great, immediate, ironclad logical argument against breeding out deaf people that I should just accept it because I think that it's okay for people to get screened for Tay-Sachs.

Right, right.

I also would note about spousal selection.

If you don't got the gene, you don't got the condition.

Makes sense.

Tay-Sachs is one example we've used on the podcast before.

Monogenic conditions include Crohn's and Huntington's disease.

And let's say we can get rid of genetic diseases.

like Huntington's or Tay-Sachs or sickle cell anemia, where we edit the genes so that embryo or that human being that is created out of that simply doesn't have the gene, doesn't have the proclivity, or just isn't able to develop some of those diseases because they're inherited.

That's the good stuff.

However, that same technology allows us to edit genes to make a kid faster, stronger, taller, and all blue hair, blue eyes, blonde hair, that great Aryan mode, Aryan model of superiority.

And it was incredibly powerful.

We were looking at animal models that had diseases like epilepsy or Tay-Sachs or cancers and changing how these animals ate completely changed how long they lived, their quality of life.

And it was just very, very powerful.

And exactly as you say, 80% of how we show up in our bodies comes from what we put into our bodies.