A Question of Genetics by Jayne Parkhouse One of the saddest things I have ever had to deal with has been some of your emails. I have only ever thought of adoptees, or the adoptive parents in the case of young children, needing to make a search for the whereabouts of birth-parents as a result of some medical problem with possible genetic links. To my amazement, the bulk of the inquiries I have received has come from birth-parents, albeit in their later years, desperate to find the children they gave up for adoption in order to pass on medical facts that could help to save lives in the long run. The problem is that many thousands of adoption files have been lost along the way for various reasons e.g. fire, flood or simple human error, and this has made the searching so much harder. I, for one, had always hoped that one or both of my birth-parents would have warned me of any family illness that they were aware of and might have passed on through their genes and that I, in turn, could have passed on to mine. The official records of those adopted do not carry enough information and certainly not this type of information. For health problems that only come to light post-adoption there is no way of informing or warning either the adoptive parents or the child of its medical history and this is where the problem lies. Various illnesses may be passed down through parents' genes and some even skip a generation, while certain medical conditions predominately manifest themselves in either boys or girls and, therefore, go unnoticed until that child has children of his or her own. The lack of medical history from an adoptee's natural parents could make any diagnosis more difficult in the early stages, thereby compounding a problem that could otherwise be treatable, especially in later generations. So, back to the point where I found your emails particularly sad. Not only do adoption records not contain sufficient information but the people that it affects, namely us, are not taking responsibility for our own or our children's health. We either need to lobby for ongoing records to be kept so that any genetic problems are recorded or we need to take our past and that of our children as seriously as we do our future and take measures to search out our own roots. Reunion isn't for everyone: I may never have searched for my birth mother if I hadn't become ill and needed some information on my condition. We need a mechanism, therefore, for leaving, in total privacy, information that birth-children by right can easily obtain. In turn, adoptees who do not wish to contact their natural parents should have a resource whereby they can easily obtain any information pertaining to health issues; hopefully long before they need it. This should be done as the right of every adopted person to know his or her medical history: a right that could save not only their lives, but also the lives of any children that they may bear. This should be a right for all adoptees. AdoptionTracker.com encourages all birth-parents and adoptees to register, even if they only want to pass on vital information but have no contact; this may be stipulated when asked for any other information that may prove helpful during the registration. Next time someone goes to see their doctor, or fills in a form that asks what diseases there are in their family, they will then know the answer. If there's a high risk of anything, they should already be aware of it. If they are at risk from diabetes, cancer or Parkinson's Disease, to name but a few, they should have that information: it's their right. Adoption is a wonderful experience for many but can be a heartbreaking wrench for others. Whatever adoption means to you it should never become a threat to your life or that of your children! If you aren't convinced about taking the steps to find a missing blood relative, think about the consequences though and then either way it will have been your decision. Copyright © 2003 Genetica Publishing Ltd