Tay-Sachs screenings at half price

ONE in thirty Ashkenazi Jews are carriers of the faulty gene that could trigger Tay-Sachs disease and Melbourne based Jewish clinical geneticists Martin Delatycki and Anges Bankier say the cost of genetic screening for the genetic mutation has reduced by nearly half.

A community screening at Beth Wiseman on March 20, which tests for Tay-Sachs disease among another six conditions for people aged 17-40, will offer all Jewish students a free screening — provided they reveal a student card — with adults accessing the screening at a price of $250, which is at 45 percent reduction from last year’s cost.

With the support of core philanthropic support, Delatycki and Bankier first implemented free testing at Jewish day schools in the early nineties and have pushed for widespread awareness of the implications of bearing faulty gene, before encouraging students to take the precautionary test.

“Throughout our working lives, Martin and I have been helping people as much as possible to avoid the condition. We make sure they know they are at increased risks, especially if they are an Ashkenazi Jew and we make them aware of what options are available to them,” she said.

With students of non-Jewish day schools constituting nearly half the Jewish student population in Melbourne, the professors are beseeching teenagers and young adults to come along and utilise the screening opportunity in fear that students will miss the boat.

“Our challenge is to reach students from non-Jewish day schools and young couples who are having children who are not part of the schools screening program,” Bankier said.

International initiatives over the last 50 years, to screen Jewish people for Tay Sachs disease have seen Tay-Sachs “virtually eliminated” and Delatycki and Bankier have decided to follow route.

“The initiative in Melbourne is to give people information and options to make informed choices about having children and having an opportunity to avoid the serious and heat breaking conditions,” she said.

It two bearers of the mutated gene reproduce, there is a one in four chance the child will have Tay-Sachs disease — an incurable, fatal disease inflicting rapid mental and physical deterioration, with a prognosis of approximately five years.

The Ashkenazi propensity to the faulty gene has been attributed to poor health conditions in an insular Jewish community of the 16th century Poland. Other theories suggest the mutated gene offers a biological advantage because it reduces chances of contracting Tuberculosis.

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