This post is a relatively touchy subject. I will try to be as politically correct as possible and simply report the facts, and I apologize for any misreading or misinterpretation on the subject.
While thumbing through the Table of Contents in W. Alfred Buice's book Health Science and Health Education (1929) I couldn't help but to stop at the section entitled "Eugenics."
Eugenics. Its just sounds discriminatory right?
Buice mentions that the public is generally misinformed about the purpose of eugenics, and it is "not to produce a race of super-men...but the object is the prevention by society, as far as possible, of the propagation of the physically and mentally defective." But is this something that we can morally control and prevent?
Buice comments that support of "physically and mentally defectives" and institutions for criminally disabled people and "the feeble-minded and insane" cost state and federal governments an exorbitant amount of money. $13,000,000 annually for Wisconsin, 1/4 of New York's state taxes and 100 million dollars for the US government, to be exact (circa 1929).
The sentence that really made my eyes twitch was when Buice said that "it has been shown previously that insanity and mental deficiency are inheritable." He talks about all that the government does to prevent the propagation of these type of people; restricting immigration, marriage licenses, sterilization, etc...
Is "insanity," or mental illness as we refer to it nowadays, inheritable? Can this really be prevented by restricting procreation of people with genes that will cause these 'problems'? Well, that is what I hope to find out in writing this post.
In my first Google search, I found an article from Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry By Peter Conrad from 2001 entitled "Genetic Optimism: Framing genes and mental illness in the news." This article aims to examine the news coverage of genetics and mental illness and the creation and persistence of "genetic optimism." Genetic optimism is described as the outlook which distorts many scientific findings to the public, and Conrad aims to balance the "hype and hope" in news stories connecting genetics and mental illness.
The process that leads to "genetic optimism" is as follows: a gene for the disorder is found to exist, it will be found, and it will be good. This frame became popular in the mid 1980s, and dominated the media that previously (pre the 1980's) reported cautiously on the role of heredity and genetics in mental illness.
Some of the diseases mentioned in the article include schizophrenia, depression, and color blindness, all of which have been shown to be genetically linked. However, we shouldn't read too much into this, because a) environment does play a large role in development of some of these diseases, b) each case is individually different and, c) if we look at these diseases as 'genetic deformities' it can lead to discriminatory and untrue claims. This last theory can be extended to homosexuality, as exemplified in the case of Dean Hamer, who discovered the "gay gene." When extended to other issues, like pre-screening for these diseases in pregnancy, it can cause people to get unwanted abortions if they think their child will inherit 'bad' genes.
Conrad points out that even though a gene exists, or a genetic marker is apparent that can show there is a genetic link for mental illnesses, this does not necessarily lead to successful forms of treatment; a feature that the media may promote. Genetic optimism, as Conrad explains, makes it easier for scientists to get funding, harder for critics to disagree with research findings, and therefore presents an unbalanced story. In addition, many of these studies which ignite genetic optimism cannot be replicated and therefore hold little scientific validity.
Some diseases that have been related to heritability time after time include cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and breast cancer. And although genes may play a role in the development of these diseases, it is important not to discount the interaction of genes, the environment's role in gene expression, or the fact that single genes rarely are able to directly impact behavior.
An article in Molecular Psychiatry entitled Gene–environment correlations: a review of the evidence and implications for prevention of mental illness goes over the methodological problems in considering the interaction between genes and the environment and their causal nature in diseases and disorders.
Another article in the same journal, The role of genetic variation in the causation of mental illness: an evolution-informed frameworkGenetic variation in the causation of mental illness by R. Uher suggests that not one theory on the role of genetics is satisfactory in explaining the causes of all mental illnesses, and rather, that these need to be tested on a case-by-case basis based on the type of mental disorder. Moreover, Uher says that common mental illness with mild reproductive disadvantages (depression, anxiety, etc...) are likely to have a large contribution from interaction between genes and the environment, whereas more severe mental disorders (schizophrenia, Down's syndrome, etc...) that confer strong reproductive disadvantages are likely to have a large and varied contribution. In other words, mental illness and heritability is a very complicated situation, and may involve a variety of environmental conditions and interactions with genes that are inherited.
One last article that I will harp on presents some actual facts about heritability of specific diseases. This article comes from Clinical Genetics and is entitled The potential impact of genetic counseling for mental illness by Austin and Honer. According to these guys, mental disorders when compared to other complex disorder are highly heritable. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect about 1% and 1-2% of the population respectively. Schizophrenia has an estimated heritability of 60-85% and bipolar is about 70-85%, which is far higher than for medical illnesses such as breast cancer or heart disease. The article mentions that genetics has uncovered many genes that "seem to play a role in Schizophrenia susceptibility and have been deemed worthy of the label 'schizophrenia genes." The paper then goes on to address some of the concerns with genetic counseling, which goes along with Buice's idea of eugenics and trying to rid the population or prevent the propagation of people born with mental disorders. However, Austin and Honer conclude with the idea that genetic counseling for mental illnesses is just as complicated as trying to identify the genes for the diseases themselves.
In conclusion, I disagree with Mr. Buice's reporting of states that require "all persons proposing marriage shall have medical and mental examinations" or that "those who are mentally defective or who harbor venereal diseases are not permitted to marry." I also don't think I agree that people admitted to institutions for the "insane and feeble-minded shall be sterilized."
Times have a-changed, and although some mental illnesses show heritability, it really isn't as simple as Buice may have originally thought.
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