Text Size

Email Post

Print Post

Comments (2)

Save Article

Photo credit: AP

Israel - Jews should no longer be categorized by their ethnic origin when being tested for hereditary conditions, says the Health Ministry. The mixing of Jewish communities - mixed heritage - has rendered such categorization pointless, the ministry’s community genetics department says.

Because of the proliferation of “mixed marriages” between Jewish communities, as well as technological advances, a single set of tests for all Jews would do the trick, the ministry advises.

Genetic analysis institutes in health-care organizations and hospitals offer Jewish couples (typically trying to become pregnant) a series of genetic screening tests, looking for genes coding hereditary diseases such as Tay-Sachs. Which tests exactly each couple undergoes is based upon the ethnic category of each partner. For instance, Ashkenazi Jews are typically tested for Tay-Sachs, while Sephardic couples might not undergo such tests.

The Health Ministry recommends halting the practice of basing specific tests based on ethnicity, and to standardize genetic tests, which would be applied uniformly to all Jews.

Read full article at Haaretz.com

More of today's headlines

“Germany - The German federal government has agreed to provide restitution payments to an additional 80,000 Jews, with the total amount estimated to be around US$ 300...” Germany - 80,000 More Holocaust Victims To Get $300 Million Restitution Payments “Hanoi, Vietnam - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the U.S. will wait for the results of any new investigation into Yasser Arafat's death and won't be...” Hanoi, Vietnam - Clinton: US Won't React To Arafat Poisoning Rumors