At first glance, no one would know that I am a patient living with sickle cell disease.
Dr Thomas said the majority of people with sickle cell disease can lead active lives, provided they receive the right expert support.
Among those patients to benefit from the new service is Barbara Mitchell, of Norbury, south London, who has received hospital care for sickle cell disease for the last 24 years.
He cites a 1978 paper that showed a link between the gene behind sickle cell disease and a variation in a section of junk DNA. Jacobson dismisses as poppycock the notion that noncoding DNA was understood back then.
Of the millions of people with sickle-cell disease in the world, only some 300 have received a bone marrow transplant because of age (doctors won't perform the procedure on patients 16 years and older) and donor-matching problems.
Early trials have shown promise in treating sickle-cell anaemia, a disease caused by a faulty haemoglobin gene.
Meanwhile, genetic carrier tests are more accurate because scientists know more about single gene disorders, such as Huntington's disease and sickle cell anemia, Faucett said.
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Who decides whether the risk is too high if say he has a sickle cell trait, but not the disease itself?
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Because she and my father both have the sickle cell trait, she was aware that I may have the disease.
It is now known that genetic variability accounts for 25% of susceptibility to the disease, but that variations in the sickle-cell gene contribute to only a fraction of that.
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