If you talk about what the frequency of genes for hereditary diseases can be influenced by, there are three points they ask us to consider, these are:
· A more widespread use of embryo research: This could be done so that parents would know the child's disability and disease, and using this knowledge, possibly to decide whether they wanted abortion.
· Increased genetic counseling: This I think should be associated with a survey of parents, so you could advise on possible risks in pregnancy. Looking at the example from before, where both parents carried the disease, we could inform them that in theory would be 25% risk of having a child with the disease, you may also go to extremes, and "splice" couple together so that at least one of them was homozygous dominant, so that they could not have children with the disease, but as I said, this would be an extreme.
· Improved treatment options for patients: This would obviously be preferable, as it could in principle drop the above two points. Had this been a cure / medicine that could cure for various hereditary diseases, it would be incredibly advantageous. The method I would see as best would be if we could go in and repair in the gene, and cultivating healthy genes, and then put them in place of the sick. Another method would be to investigate the woman's egg, and then select those eggs which had phenotype C, so that cystic fibrosis could not be expressed.
