Leukemia Overview: Symptoms, Signs, Treatment and Causes
Is Sickle Cell Disease Genetic?
Sickle cell disease is genetic. In order to develop SCD, a person needs to inherit a specific gene from both of their parents. Together, these genes affect the development of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells.
The genes lead to the creation of abnormal hemoglobin, which results in red blood cells that are hard, sticky, and C-shaped, which gives the disease its name.
As sickle cell disease is genetic, people have it from birth.
For a person to develop sickle cell disease, they must inherit an abnormal hemoglobin gene from both parents.
A person with one abnormal hemoglobin gene and one typical hemoglobin gene will have sickle cell trait.
People with sickle cell trait do not usually experience any symptoms or health differences, but they can pass on an abnormal hemoglobin gene to their child.
If both parents have sickle cell disease, a child will inherit sickle cell disease.
If one parent has sickle cell disease and one has the sickle cell trait, there is a 50% chance their child will have sickle cell disease and a 50% chance their child will have sickle cell trait.
If both parents have the sickle cell trait:
Sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that over 90% of people with sickle cell disease are non-Hispanic Black or African American. Around 3% to 9% are Hispanic or Latino.
If parents are considering having a child and are concerned about sickle cell trait, here are some steps they can take.
Get tested for sickle cell trait
Both parents can undergo a simple blood test called hemoglobin electrophoresis or a sickle cell screening test to determine if they carry the sickle cell gene.
If both parents have sickle cell trait, there is a 25% chance with each pregnancy their child will have sickle cell disease.
Consult a genetic counselor
A genetic counselor can help explain the risks of passing on sickle cell disease, provide detailed information about inheritance patterns, and discuss reproductive options.
They can also help interpret test results and support decision-making.
Consider prenatal testing
If both parents carry the sickle cell trait, prenatal tests, such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS), a doctor can perform these tests during pregnancy to check for sickle cell disease in the fetus.
These tests can determine if the fetus has inherited one or two copies of the sickle cell gene.
Explore other reproductive options
Some couples may consider in vitro fertilization (IVF) with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to ensure the embryo does not inherit two copies of the sickle cell gene.
Parents may also wish to consider donor eggs or sperm from someone without the sickle cell trait to reduce the risk.
Understand the impact of sickle cell trait
If one parent has sickle cell trait and the other does not, their child may inherit the trait but will not develop sickle cell disease.
Knowing this can help parents make informed decisions about family planning.
By getting tested and consulting professionals, parents can better understand the likelihood of passing on sickle cell disease and explore options to manage that risk.
In general, people with sickle cell disease have shorter life expectancies than people who do not have one of these blood disorders. In the U.S., the estimated life expectancy is around 20 years shorter.
A person's outlook will depend on their access to appropriate treatment and their available options for managing the disease.
Many people who have sickle cell disease have difficulties accessing treatment and screening, however. They also may face stigmatization when speaking with doctors.
Support for sickle cell disease
The CDC and the American Society of Hematology have created sickle cell disease factsheets to provide health tips and information about these disorders.
Most people with sickle cell disease should be in contact with a doctor every 3 to 12 months to monitor their disease, when possible.
Which parent carries the sickle cell trait?
Either parent can carry the sickle cell trait, but both parents must carry it for their child to develop sickle cell disease.
Can white people get sickle cell anemia?
White people can get sickle cell anemia. People of any race or ethnicity can get this disease, so long as both of their parents pass on the sickle cell trait.
However, it is much more common in people with an African heritage. The CDC reports that more than 90% of people with sickle cell disease in the U.S. Are non-Hispanic Black or African American.
Can you develop sickle cell or are you born with it?
People are born with sickle cell disease and cannot develop it later in life.
Sickle cell disease is a genetic blood disorder caused by inheriting an abnormal hemoglobin gene from both parents.
People can inherit an abnormal hemoglobin gene from a parent if a parent has sickle cell disease or the sickle cell trait, which is when someone has one abnormal hemoglobin gene.
While sickle cell disease can have a significant impact on a person's life, there are many treatment options for managing the disease if a person can access them.
Prospective parents can also undergo genetic counseling to learn more about the potential heritability of sickle cell disease.
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Opinion: Trump Says Criminal Activity Is Genetic. Nazis Showed Where Such Talk Can Lead
In a recent interview, Donald Trump claimed that 13,000 "murderers" have been admitted to the United States through an "open border." He continued that for murderers, "it's in their genes. And we've got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."
That criminal activity is rooted in an offender's genetic makeup is an old, largely discredited idea. For Trump to spout questionable science is hardly new. But the disturbing implications in what he said raise the specter of far worse crimes than anything one murderer could do.
The Italian physician and criminologist Cesare Lombroso came up with the idea of the "born criminal" in the 1870s. Lombroso thought that criminals were "primitive" humans born into the modern world — identifiable by their thick hair, dark skin and small craniums. Reflecting the racism of his day, he equated criminals to Africans, Indigenous Americans, Sinti and Roma, even southern Italians. In the fifth and final edition of his book, "Criminal Man," he concluded that the "struggle for existence" should "shield us from pity" for born criminals, who were "not of our species but the species of bloodthirsty beasts." Ironically, his criminology became a justification for mass killing.
In the early 20th century, Lombroso's ideas gradually fell out of favor. But they made a comeback in Germany under the Nazis, as what the Nazis called "criminal biology." When the Nazis got control of German police, criminal biology became their paradigm for identifying and punishing lawbreakers.
For the Nazis, the role of the criminal police was not only to catch crooks after the commission of an offense but to engage in preventive crime fighting. The Nazis' criminal police were empowered to send anyone they suspected might commit a crime in the future to a concentration camp — based on their supposed criminal biology.
And Nazi leaders spoke about criminals — especially repeat offenders — with clearly murderous intent.
In 1935, Hans Schneickert, a senior Berlin police official, wrote that criminal policy was about the "eradication of life unworthy of life," which meant genetic criminals. The phrase "life unworthy of life" had been coined just a few years before by a prominent professor of criminal law.
The head of all criminal police in Nazi Germany, Arthur Nebe, wrote in 1939 that a criminal should not be given any "opportunity to carry his terrible genes into the community and to breed criminals unhindered." Nebe's deputy, Paul Werner, added that "if a criminal or asocial person has [criminal] ancestors," his behavior was "hereditary," and "a change cannot be achieved through educational influences. Such a person must therefore be dealt with in a different way."
Nebe's police began working closely with Robert Ritter, a medical doctor who made his name with research on the supposed criminal habits of generations of Sinti and Roma, and with his strange obsession with the "Jenisch" people — a Sinti-related group that Ritter held to be "a residue of primitive tribes" and responsible for most crime.
Two things are important here: first that the Nazis racialized criminals, holding that lawbreakers were defined by their genes and closely related to the Sinti and Roma, the Jenisch and the Jews. And second, that Nazis took the next step: This racial group had to be "dealt with in a different way" — in other words, killed.
The Nazis created "Special Courts" to administer speedy trials with no appeals, in order to "render harmless," "eradicate" and "exterminate" their defendants. Criminals, or even suspected criminals, could also be sent to concentration camps. Eventually those camps started administering what they called "annihilation through labor."
It didn't stop there. Nebe's crime lab began experimenting with gas chambers using carbon monoxide. These chambers were used to kill people with mental and physical disabilities. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Nebe went east to command what the Nazis called an Einsatzgruppe — a task force — with the mission of shooting "saboteurs," "plunderers" and Jews, in inconceivable numbers. He brought many criminal police officers with him. This was the first form of what we now call the Holocaust.
When mass shootings proved too stressful for Einsatzgruppe personnel, Nebe remembered the gas chambers his lab had developed and began experimenting with them again. This was the technology of the Holocaust as we usually think of it. Most people whom the Nazis executed in gas chambers were killed with carbon monoxide. Nebe and his criminal police were the architects of this form of mass killing.
Once this model for racializing "criminals" and the technology to kill them en masse had been developed, the Nazis had no trouble shifting it to the killing of people with disabilities, the Sinti and Roma, LGBTQ+ people and, of course, Jews.
When Trump makes statements about genetic criminals — especially when he equates criminals with immigrants and ethnic minorities, and talks about giving the police "one really violent day" to deal with them — we should worry. We know the grim truth about where racializing, criminalizing and pre-genocidal language can lead.
Benjamin Carter Hett is a professor of history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. His latest book is "The Nazi Menace: Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Road to War."
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