Do your genes make you more likely to catch bird flu?
Public health practitioner Revere at Effect Measure has an excellent (as always) post about genetic susceptibility to bird flu. I especially loved this analogy for why we shouldn’t always attribute chance and unexplained factors to genes:
But consider this. If I flip a coin and it comes up tails and you flip the same coin, under identical conditions and it comes up heads, we don’t say that I have the “tails” gene and you have the “heads” gene. Or if you see a movie and like it and I see the same movie and hate it, we don’t say you have the movie-loving gene and I have the movie-hating gene.
Just remember, using genes as an excuse won’t fly with me.
For a layperson’s perspective on the bird flu situation, visit our sister blog - Flu Patrol.
Technorati Tags: bird flu, genetics, genes, health, public health, dna, disease, health, flu
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POSTED IN: General Genetics and Health
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2 opinions for Do your genes make you more likely to catch bird flu?
Kim
May 9, 2006 at 12:37 pm
This was a great analogy and the links were even more interesting, thanks for sending the link!
What if Hollywood portrayed a fictional Bird Flu Pandemic and actually showed people behaving as they should instead of all panicky and stupid. Show the fear, show the shortages,but show the appropriate behavior AND show the doctors and nurses who WON’T be staying home!
Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD
May 9, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Hi Kim! Nice to see you here. :)
Can you imagine a real-life drama that DIDN’T have stupid people in it? Nah…. what’s the fun of that? LOL
I’ll be counting on nurses like you to get me through whatever’s coming down the pike.
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