[quote=njtosd]Here’s my concern – let’s say you find out you have a (significant) genetic disease. Do you now have an obligation to disclose that fact when applying for health/life insurance? I have a friend whose mom has huntingtons disease … He doesn’t want to get tested for fear he’ll have to disclose it the results (he has a 50/50 chance). And even if you don’t have health life insurance issues – maybe there are some things you don’t want to know -[/quote]

True, nj. But many people have active “level-term” or “decreasing-term” policies until age 70, issued while young and healthy. Who really cares if you don’t have life insurance anymore after age 70?

For these people and other people with family histories of certain cancers, I think it is prudent for a “healthy person” to find out if they have a propensity to develop certain cancers in order to be proactive for their health the future. Many times, this “proactivity” is the difference between life … and an untimely death (ex: the presence of breast or colon cancer genes).

I’m not sure the tests MM will sign up for are the most accurate way to approach this, however. The best way is to convince your sick 1st or 2nd degree relative to sign up to donate cancer tissue (which will be preserved in paraffin until their relatives are financially ready to conduct testing for the presence of very specific genes … or instability thereof). The sick relative can agree to do this prior to surgery or prior to death. The post-mortem tissue donation, taken within three hours of death, still leaves the body viewable from its casket, if that’s what the relative has chosen.

For a suspected inherited-cancer victim, this is the greatest give he/she can leave behind to their children and siblings.

Sorry to be morbid here, but this is the way it’s done.