Genetic Counseling Quotes

Hereditary cancer syndromes are characterized by substantial but not absolute risks of specific cancers.

Surviving suicide is never easy, but it is possible with support, with time, compassionate direction, and, in some cases, counseling. While there are predictable responses, every case is unique. How we respond is determined genetically, culturally, and by such factors as religion, age, gender, previous experience with loss, and role models of other survivors available to us. The pattern of recovery is unpredictable. Responses such as numbness, denial, or rage, which are often thought to occur shortly after a suicide, may be absent for many months or even years. They may emerge unexpectedly years later. We are unable to identify an orderliness to the reactions of suicide. Perhaps the most important aspect of providing help to survivors is an attitude of compassionate understanding. Survivors remember the words that brought them the most comfort, as well as those spoken in haste and insensitively. In our eagerness to help we may say things that we regret later. Sensitivity to the survivor's needs and readiness to hear is crucial. Lacking such readiness, the survivor may reject all overtures, in essence saying, "Leave me alone. Unless you've experienced something like this, you don't know what I'm experiencing. Don't pretend to be an understanding, compassionate healer.

how often the “person” who delivers God’s special words of counsel at just the right moment might actually be an angel on assignment.

In 1921, Terman decided to make the study of the gifted his life work. Armed with a large grant from the Commonwealth Foundation, he put together a team of fieldworkers and sent them out into California’s elementary schools. Teachers were asked to nominate the brightest students in their classes. Those children were given an intelligence test. The students who scored in the top 10 percent were then given a second IQ test, and those who scored above 130 on that test were given a third IQ test, and from that set of results Terman selected the best and the brightest. By the time Terman was finished, he had sorted through the records of some 250,000 elementary and high school students, and identified 1,470 children whose IQs averaged over 140 and ranged as high as 200. That group of young geniuses came to be known as the “Termites,” and they were the subjects of what would become one of the most famous psychological studies in history. For the rest of his life, Terman watched over his charges like a mother hen. They were tracked and tested, measured and analyzed. Their educational attainments were noted, marriages followed, illnesses tabulated, psychological health charted, and every promotion and job change dutifully recorded. Terman wrote his recruits letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate school applications. He doled out a constant stream of advice and counsel, all the time recording his findings in thick red volumes entitled Genetic Studies of Genius.

Gene Patents Aren’t Benign and Never Will Be,” in which he claimed that people could die in the future from not being able to afford medical treatment as a result of medicines owned by patent holders of specific genes related to the genetic makeup of those persons. Former special counsel for President Richard Nixon, Charles Colson,

We already know which genes in one chromosome are responsible for Tay-Sachs disease, which afflicts Jews with a fatal disorder. That already permits us to do genetic counseling of young couples with the gene who may want to marry: ‘Since you both carry a defective chromosome, better not have children.