What is the ethical dilemma posed by HD?
Huntington disease represents a classic ethical dilemma created by knowledge of genes, i.e., that of the widening gap between what we can diagnose and what we can do anything about. Nancy Wexler, a leading HD researcher, poses the questions as follows: • Do you want to know how and when you are going to die, especially if you have no power to change the outcome? • Should such knowledge be made freely available? • How does a person choose to learn this momentous information? • How does one cope with the answer? Does everyone with the Huntington gene develop the disease? If they live long enough, yes. Each person who inherits the HD gene and lives long enough sooner or later develops the disease. However, the time of onset of the disease can vary greatly from one person to the next. At what age does HD appear? The age of the onset of the signs and symptoms of HD as well as the rate of disease progression can vary greatly. Although it normally presents symptoms in patients between thirty
