GENETIC EFFECTS 15 



to make systematic surveys of what needs to be done and recommendations as to how to get 

 it done. 



Perhaps no one approach can provide a complete solution. No doubt both government 

 and private agencies will continue to use staffs of professionally trained geneticists and to 

 appoint advisory committees and study panels to assist them. The Federal Council of Science 

 and Technology may well choose to sponsor a review of the present total effort in the radia- 

 tion hazards field. 



Whatever the approach, it is most important that able investigators with creative ideas 

 be identified, be given adequate facilities, be provided stimulating environments for their 

 work, and be given reasonable assurance of continued support. If this is done well, many 

 of the problems that would otherwise go unsolved will be taken care of with competence and 

 dispatch. 



1. Genetics in Medical Schools 



Entirely aside from the problem of more accurately estimating radiation hazards to the 

 hereditary material of man, there is an important need for an increased emphasis on genetics 

 in the training of medical personnel. It has been estimated that something like two per cent of 

 the population are born with significant genetic defects now demonstrable. When one con- 

 siders that for the population of the United States alone this may mean as many as 80,000 

 individuals born with such genetic defects each year (of which perhaps 4000 are homozygous 

 for an assumed single gene differentiating the incurable and often fatal disease cystic fibrosis 

 of the pancreas), one gains some proper appreciation of the magnitude of the medical problem 

 of heritable diseases in man. Not only is it important that members of the medical profession 

 be better acquainted with present knowledge of the nature of such diseases and know what 

 can or cannot now be done to alleviate or cure them, but in the long run it is even more 

 important that they do more to help advance knowledge concerning their genetic bases. 

 Millions of persons receive some medical attention every year in the United States, and 

 members of the medical profession are therefore in a most favorable position to discover 

 what medically significant traits are inherited and how. Obviously they cannot do this unless 

 they have a better understanding of genetics than they now receive in most medical schools. 



There has recently been an encouraging trend toward the appointment of geneticists 

 by medical schools and there are now perhaps a dozen such schools with first-rate and well- 

 trained modern geneticists on their faculties. The number should be increased as rapidly as 

 manpower will permit. In many instances the limiting factor is financial rather than any 

 lack of adequately trained and interested manpower; a relatively few millions of dollars 

 invested in additional permanent faculty positions in medical genetics in the United States 

 would go a long way toward improving the situation. 



The above arguments imply the desirability of revision in medical school curricula to 

 include, or require for entrance, a sound training in modern genetics. 



2. The Utilization of Medical Records 



Medical records, as normally kept by individual practitioners and by hospitals, are not 

 designed to be maximally useful in determining the genetic basis of various diseases. It 

 seems clear that they could be improved enormously in this respect at relatively little cost. 



