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Re:Why Saudi Arabia Is Pushing Premarital Genetic Screening by ars on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:27AM (#16061720)
> if scientific evidence can tell you that your marriage to your first or second cousin is highly unlikely to cause genetic defects in offspring

The science is not there. It probably will never be there. We can only screen for certain conditions. Close marriage will turn up all sorts of new conditions no one knows about (ahead of time).

Until the day we can make our DNA "perfect" close marriage will always be a problem.

And on that day I suppose even sibling marriage (or incest) would not be a genetic problem.

Re:Why Saudi Arabia Is Pushing Premarital Genetic Screening by shayaknyc on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:42AM (#16061876)
You're correct in that you can only test for things you know about (duh, you don't know what you don't know) so as far as screening goes, it's just a matter of how much you're screening FOR. It's also really easy to rule out which diseases are not likely to occur just by checking one person's DNA. You only have to screen where both samples can potentially combine to form something bad.
Re:Why Saudi Arabia Is Pushing Premarital Genetic Screening by Ovah on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:19AM (#16062233)
Far from all hereditary disease are easy to rule based on genetic tests.

You need to differentiate between Mendelian and Complex genetic disorders. While genetic tests are useful to indentiy disease caused by a single allele (Mendelian disorders), they today are inconclusive for many other Complex diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, with a known genetic component. These disease are multifactorial: the interplay between several genes (variants) and environmental stimuli cause the disease. One of several genetic mutation must be present for the disease to occur, but without an environmental stimulus, the disease will never materialize. As such, even though we have acces to a full genom sequence, genetic tests are inherently limited and thus inconclusive in determining risk for many diseases.