SIDMOUTH MOON
There is a mystery why so many people in Europe have the cystic fibrosis gene. Few people realize that they even have it or that they may already have children that have the gene, or that they may conceive children with cystic fibrosis. Do the math. If one in twenty have the gene then so many people who are married have the gene, and so many of the children that they have will have the gene. It's all down to probabilities, and chances are that you won't have a cystic fibrosis child because the math is working in that way, but only the math.
Scientists are puzzled as to why so many people in Europe have the cystic fibrosis gene. It means that almost every family has had or will have the gene at some time. Again, do the math. This means that cystic fibrosis is everyone's problem and everyone should help those with cystic fibrosis and everyone should pay to see that the disease is given top priority and eliminated as problem. Right!
Well, no, not quite, and the reason may be that expression of the cystic fibrosis gene was in the past what saved a significantly large segment of the population. In other words, the people with cystic fibrosis may have survived a disease that other succumbed to. In other words, having cystic fibrosis may have saved those in the population from something worse. What could be worse?
Well, one possibility is typhoid. Read about that in an article in Science News. This leads me to the conclusion that there are really two problems that society needs to deal with and solving one may help the other. In other words, it may be that if we find a solution to the disease of cystic fibrosis we need to have a solution to typhoid fever. Everyone can get typhoid fever. Right! But, no! Wrong! If you think that everyone can get typhoid fever maybe you have not understood what I am saying. In the end, we may need to sort out both diseases and thus combine the research efforts. Fund typhoid fever research while you fund cystic fibrosis research. Such combined research works in all our favours because we may all have the same problem of the expression, or non expression, of the cystic fibrosis gene. We may all need to have safe cystic fibrosis to escape typhoid fever! Or, perhaps you think typhoid is not really a problem. I would chew on that one if I were you and take a longer coffee break for your creative juices. I wonder what the other diseases might be that this research needs to unearth.