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Mercies in disguise : a story of hope, a family's genetic destiny, and the science that rescued them / Gina Kolata.

by Kolata, Gina Bari, 1948-

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St. Martin's Press, 2017.

Baxley family -- Health.

Medical genetics.

Genetic disorders -- Biography.

Genetic screening -- Moral and ethical aspects.

9781250064349 (hc.)

viii, 262 pages ; 22 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-250) and index.

Part I. A disease -- Prologue -- the prophecy -- "No goddamn bastard on earth has ever seen a disease like this thing" -- Revelation -- An uncertain inheritance -- Truth like science fiction -- Birthright -- Insomnia -- Naming the problem -- No return -- Tested -- Part II. Amanda Baxley: the next generation -- A life transformed -- Options -- A foreign land -- The envelope -- Of two minds -- A unique way -- "We have no other options" -- Prescription fertility -- New lives -- Carrying forth -- Epilogue.

"If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold a brutal illness and you were offered the chance to find out if you'd inherited it, would you do it? New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an almost archetypal family in a small town in South Carolina. A proud and determined clan, many of them doctors, they are struck one by one with an inscrutable illness. They finally discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of events. Meanwhile, science, progressing for a half a century, handed the Baxleys a resolution - not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease and who did not. And fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children through an expensive process. The story of a family that took matters into its own hands when the medical world abandoned them. A family that had to deal with unspeakable tragedy and yet did not allow it to tear them apart. And the story of a young woman - Amanda Baxley - who faced the future head on, determined to find a way to disrupt her family's destiny."--Provided by publisher.

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