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Medical Info

  • 06-06-2008 1:27pm
    #1
    martinf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 61 ✭✭


    Hi,

    I have been thinking more and more about the lack of access we have to medical info for the last while. Partly this is due to my having a son and wondering what issues we may have in our family background that will affect us in the future. I'm also lucky in that I have met several of my birth siblings which means that we can at least compare our own stories to see if we have anything in common. I'm wondering if there is any appetite out there for a campaign to get access to our medical information without any veto restrictions even if such information was potentially identifying. My reason for this is that if there's a family medical issue that's that rare it's probably as well that you know about it.

    I would even go so far as to say that up to date information should be obtained if at all possible as a lot can change over the years and even an inherited issue may not have arisen when our birthparents were young.

    I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue.

    Best wishes

    Martin


Comments

  • #2
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,286 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    Us Irish are not known as being the healthiest nation in the world. We have the worlds highest incidence of Cystic Fibrosis and ME along with startling levels of a bewildering array of other diseases, some genetic, some environmental, some unknown. Its an entirely reasonable assumption that most people have at least something in their genetic medical background of concern, that may in many cases be avoidable or treatable if its presence were known.

    Personally I find it strange that adopted people are treated as second class citizens- most people take their medical history as a given, while we have nada..... How many times have you been asked by a doctor whether there was any family history of a particular condition? If you're ill at all, it'll come up. In the absence of anything concrete if you've a good doctor you end up getting subjected to a barrage of tests- if not- you may be handed a prescription for anti-depresants, branded a hypochondriac or in worst case scenarios be told that while you have a genuine condition that its purely psychosomatic and get sent to a shrink. I'm not exagerating- this is the norm, not an exception.........

    I would heartily support any campaign to make medical information unilaterly available to adopted people, regardless of whether it risked identifying birthfamily members or not. Its only fair. Why should adopted people be human guinea pigs?


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