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Am I My Genes?: Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing 1st Edition


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In the fifty years since DNA was discovered, we have seen extraordinary advances. For example, genetic testing has rapidly improved the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as Huntington's, cystic fibrosis, breast cancer, and Alzheimer's. But with this new knowledge comes difficult decisions for countless people, who wrestle with fear about whether to get tested, and if so, what to do with the results.

Am I My Genes? shows how real individuals have confronted these issues in their daily lives. Robert L. Klitzman interviewed 64 people who faced Huntington's Disease, breast and ovarian cancer, or Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. The book describes--often in the person's own words--how each has wrestled with the vast implications that genetics has for their lives and their families. Klitzman shows how these men and women struggle to make sense of their predicament and its causes. They confront a series of quandaries--whether to be tested; whether to disclose their genetic risks to parents, siblings, spouses, offspring, friends, doctors, insurers, employers, and schools; how to view and understand themselves and their genetics; what treatments, if any, to pursue; whether to have children, adopt, screen embryos, or abort; and whether to participate in genetic communities. In the face of these uncertainties, they have tried to understand these tests and probabilities, avoid fatalism, anxiety, despair, and discrimination, and find hope, meaning, and a sense of wholeness. Forced to wander through a wilderness of shifting sands, they chart paths that many others may eventually follow.

Klitzman captures here the voices of pioneers, some of the first to encounter the personal dilemmas introduced by modern genetics.
Am I My Genes? is an invaluable account of their experience, one that will become all the more common in the coming years.

"An extraordinary exploration...probing the many roles and implications of genetics in our lives today.... Filled with astonishing insights, this riveting book is vital reading for us all."
--Paula Zahn

"Klitzman lucidly discusses the moral and psychological complexities that come in the wake of genetic testing.... An important book for anyone who has the genes for pathology, which is all of us, and I recommend it highly."
--Kay Redfield Jamison, author of
An Unquiet Mind

"An illuminating voyage through the medical, familial and existential quandaries faced by those of us at genetic risk."
--Thomas H. Murray, President and CEO, The Hastings Center

Editorial Reviews

Review

In Am I My Genes?, the psychiatrist and ethicist Dr. Robert L. Klitzman plunges readers into the world of genomic medicine as it exists today: a barely mapped terrain of immense overlapping uncertainties...this book should make compelling reading for anyone considering genetic testing for these or any other conditions: It provides an instant community of fellow travelers along with a sophisticated moderator."
-Abigail Zuger, M.D.,
New York Times

"Blending compassion and good science, Robert Klitzman proposes new guidelines for the morally complex questions of how we understand our genetics, and what we choose to do with the destiny they imply. His sensitive, humanist approach converts information into knowledge..." -- Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree (National Book Critics Circle Award winner), and Noonday Demon (National Book Award winner)

"Am I My Genes? should be required reading for students of genetic counseling--and for people facing the challenges of genomic health in their own lives." -- Michael A. Goldman, Science Magazine

"The greatest strength of the book is the detail and nuance it offers based on in-depth interviews andKlitzman's careful parsing of the different issues the interviewees face.... As Klitzman concedes, he has "raised more questions than [he has] wholly answered." But that is his goal: "to illuminate the wide range of complexities and challenges
that genetics can pose, to help ready us--as individuals and as a broader society-- for the onslaught of genetic information that is fast approaching, whether we want it or not" (321). Klitzman has succeeded in brightly illuminating those challenges." -- Sonia M. Suter, GeorgeWashington University Law School,
The American Journal of Bioethics

"The book provides a novel window into the world of regular people facing unprecedented problems in the new world of genetic technologies, and the author is correct in noting that we have a lot to learn from these pioneers." -- DOODY'S

Book Description

An illuminating look at the challenges of genetic testing, highlighting the dilemmas faced by people at risk for genetic disease, based on first-hand accounts

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 1, 2012
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 376 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199837163
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199837168
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #3,649,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

About the author

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Robert Klitzman
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I am a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, where I direct the Masters of Bioethics Program.