There are many different causes of human disease. Sickle cell disease, an inherited disease, is caused by a mistake in body chemistry. Sickle cell disease is the result of abnormal hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying molecule of the red blood cell. Sickle cell disease differs widely from one individual to another. It differs in both the extent of its complications and its severity. People who are born with sickle cell disease cannot outgrow it. People who are not born with sickle cell disease can never get it. It is not contagious, and it is not caused by anything we come in contact with.
Sickle cell trait runs in the same families as sickle cell disease, but people with sickle cell trait do not have sickle cell disease, and they never will. In some occasions however, they can have children who do. People with sickle cell disease have inherited two damaged genes, one from each parent. In sickle cell disease, it is the genes that are damaged, and that is why the hemoglobin is abnormal. Once it is known whether a couple carries genes for sickle cell disease, the likelihood of their children being born with it can be predicted. Although disease is found in several groups of people, it is most prevalent among people of African ancestry. Over 50,000 African-Americans suffer from sickle cell disease, which makes it a major public health concern in the United States.
The largest proportion of sickle cell disease cases occurs among blacks, both in Africa and in countries with a slave trade history. When it comes to the United States, there is a lower frequency of cases in the North than in the South, where isolated pockets of considerably higher frequency have been reported. IN the United States, most cases of sickle cell disease occur among African Americans, and the earliest published reports of the disease here all involved black patients. Caucasians too carry the sickle cell gene, although many people do not realize it. Sickle cell disease occurs among whites from...