Simply CF : A Common Carrier
Cystic Fibrosis is a complex and sometimes confusing disease.
Each installment of Breathe 3-65 called,"Simply CF" will strive to explain the complexities of CF in a concise and accessible way.
A Common Carrier
Approximately 30,000 people in the United States have Cystic Fibrosis. But, did you know that 1 in 31 people in the US are carriers of the CF gene? That’s about 10 million Americans! That could be you!
How does someone get CF?
In order to have CF, both parents must be carriers of the CF gene. However, even if both parents are carriers of the CF gene it does not guarantee that the child will have CF. A child must receive a defective CF gene from both carrier parents in order to be diagnosed with CF. If the child receives one defective gene and one normal gene, the child will also be a carrier but will not have CF. If both parents are carriers, there’s only a 25% chance that their child will inherit two sets of the defective gene. Every year, about 1,000 new cases of CF are diagnosed in the United States.
What does it mean to be a “carrier?”
A carrier has a single copy of the defective CF gene and a single copy of a normal gene. Carriers do not have Cystic Fibrosis.
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Source: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation