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The Message -- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana
_ t[] _' ..... 'l'r I" ,' t[ I ,i _ __
Free will crucial in understanding
By NANCY FRAZIER O'BRIEN
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Any debate over nature vs.
nurture must take into consideration the importance of
free will, the nati6n's top geneticist told a gathering of
doctors and medical educators March 21.
Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human
Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of
Health, told a Washington conference that the gene-
mapping project is showing that every major disease
except some types of trauma -- has both a genetic
and an environmental component.
As genetic research progresses, he said, it will become
increasingly possible to discover precisely what dis-
eases to which a particular person might be susceptible.
But even that information will not definitively show
who will get a certain disease, Collins added.
"Free will is never mentioned, never measured in
these scales," he said. "It's unfortunate that it's not men-
tioned, because to divide everything up into nature vs.
nurture discounts what it means to be a human being."
Collins" talk-on "Nature, Nurture and Spirituality:
We Are More Than Our Genes" closed a two-day con-
ference on "Spirituality, Cross-Cultural Issues and End-
of-Life Care: Curricular Development," sponsored by
the National Institute for Health Care Research and the
Association of American Medical Colleges.
The conference was aimed at helping medical schools
integrate into their curriculums the views of patients
on spirituality and health, diversity issues and care at
the end of life.
Collins said his talk had little to do with end-of-life
issues, since even when the genetic "revolution" comes,
"the death rate will still be one per person."
On the cross-cultural issue, he expressed the convic-
tion that "the concept of race will become ever more
meaningless from the scientific point of view" as genet-
ic advances continue.
Collins, who was on the research team that discov-
ered the gene for cystic fibrosis in 1989, centered his
very major disease except some types
of trauma has both a genetic and an
environmental component
Dr. Francis S. Collins
address on the topic of spirituality and science. He had
said in the talk that he had become a Christian at the
age of 27.
The 15-year project to map and sequence all of the
human DNA by the year 2005 is running "a little ahead
of schedule and a little under budget," Collins said. He
said the project was nearly at its midpoint, reaching
that milestone on the "unfortunate" date of April Fool's
Day, April 1, 1998.
He said the technology needed to see a person's
DNA and thus predict his or her susceptibility to cer-
tain illnesses "is about to burst forth into the clinic."
But much groundwork remains
primary care physicians
Collins said.
"The point is to use that
he said, saying that many patients
know that they have a prof
ease if there is no known cure, as is
with Huntington disease and
"We cannot allow medicine to becorae
line where
and stick
genetic
the results
laps," he
Collins
Congress will
guard
offensive use ofi
mation,"
companies
want to screen out those likely to
Even when the "blueprint"
pleted through the genome
stand how it all works," Collins
"The reflection is a certain
he is as a person," he added. "Are
sum of our genes? You betcha."
Through the genome project,
are learning a huge amount
into disease prevention." 3ut
tion, the gene map "will be
the building."
The Secret's Out ......
Natural Family Planning, not 'Rhythm'
"I wish I knew all this 20 years Kipple)5 international NFP lead-
ago[," Mary Ann Miles, Pastoral ers, point out that for about 80
Associate at St. Clement Church percent of married COulCles, Cal- using
exclaimed to the Natural Family endar Rhythm proved to be . st. Thomas Acquinas (1225 - 1274 A.D.) Calendar Rhythm method
Planning professionals as they "about as effective as the mechan- writes about human conception fertility becomes more predictable
finished a slide presentation in ical contraceptives available dur- I
Boonville last month, ins the years before [oral contra- 700-Years ,
...................................................................................................... ceptives]." Calendar Rhythm Marco Polo takes land route to China (1271 A.D.) Assembly production
worked when a woman's cycles
NEWS AND COMMENTARY
remained fairly the same from
By SOOZIE SCHELLER
one cycle to the next. However,
Contributing Writer
the Calendar Rhythm method This simple time line give some perspective on the understanding of human
...--.,-,,-.- could not accurately serve the some major world events.
Up until that evening, Mary roughly one out of five women
Ann was only familiar with the who normally experience wide cycle. Ninety-eight percent Of Nebraska upon Natural Family
Calendar Rhythm method of variation between cycles. Espe-
Natural Family Planning and its cially for couples who were in couples of normal fertility seek- Planning and uses NFP to diag- ning
limitations. Based on the the post-partum period, experi- ins to achieve a pregnancy do nose and treat women'shealth from the 'bu
so by the sixth cycle. Women
he modern Ovulation Method of
natural Family Planning overcomes
the limitations of previous methods.
wlo breastfeed or have long
enced infertility, or were in cer-
tain other circumstances, Cal-
endar Rhythm sometimes failed
to help couples avoid or achieve
pregnancy.
Mary Ann Miles was one in
that group who experienced dif-
ficulty in using the Calendar
Rhythm method. The modern
Ovulation Method of Natural
Family Planning impressed
Mary Ann and the other women
attending the NFP Information-
al Session because of its preci-
sion, versatility and usefulness
as a health record. The Ovula-
tion Method is 99.6 percent
effective in avoiding pregnancy.
Seventy-five percent of couples
seeking to achieve a pregnancy
dO so within the first menstrual
or variable cycles use the
Ovulation Method of Nat-
ural Family Planning effec-
tively.
Dr. Thomas J. Hilgers of
the Pope Paul VI Institute for
the Study of Human Reproduc-
tion has built a large, successful
medical practice in Omaha,
problems more effectively than
with artificial reproductive
technologies. His own suc-
cess leads Dr. Hilgers to say,
not' work."
Planning
For more
one
Family
Mar
in
in
call St.
"''"'n° ST. M
medical news
from,c=.ho,c Health
perspect,ve is
a courtesy of Services
t
research of Dr. Kyusaku Okino
(1924, Japan) and Dr. Her-
mann Knaus (1929, Austria),
users of "Rhythm" predicted a
woman's fertile phase by
applying formulas to calendar
records of her past menstrual
cycles. When Okino and
Knaus linked the ovulation
event to the last day of the men-
strual cycle instead of the begin-
ning of the menstrual cycle,
they reached the first modern
milestone in understanding the
timing of ovulation.
While the overall history of
Natural Family Planning is too
extensive to describe in this
week's column, it is important
to note that our civilization's
transportation skills have pro-
gressed more steadily than our
knowledge of human concep-
tion over the last 700 years.
Only since the 1960s did the
pace of research increase to pro-
vide us with the modern NFP
methods.
ting on the Calendar
R.yema John and
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