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Thursday, February 9, 2006 12:00 AM

The baby industrial complex

A Harvard economist reveals that the booming fertility industry is shockingly unregulated -- and says it's time for the U.S. government to step in.

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  • Friday, February 10, 2006 06:53 AM

    "Genetically marginal"???

    ahansen, just a small note to you. In a meeting a few years ago with a reknowned geneticist, I learned that every single human being's DNA contains several genetic mutations which, recombined with a partner's DNA, could produce offspring with genetic diseases. I learned this because my husband and I have a child with an autosomal recessive genetic disease.

    Do you know what your DNA is hiding? I doubt it. Our mutations aren't written on our foreheads. Testing is expensive and complicated for the myriad diseases whose causes are already known; moreover, there are thousands of other genetic diseases whose mutations have yet to be located on the genome. We are only at the beginning of this adventure.

    Infertile people are not more "genetically marginal", as you put it, than anyone else. To say that is to lay the society-induced fault and guilt of having disabled and/or ill children at the feet of loving parents, who were, in most instances, probably not even aware of the possibility of passing on disease.

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