TAY-SACHS ALMOST ERADICATED

Tay-Sachs, the `Jewish disease,' almost eradicated by Tamara Traubman
The genetic mutation disease Tay-Sachs, a fatal inherited disease of the central nervous system that mostly affects Ashkenazi Jews, has been almost completely eradicated, experts say, who claim that a genetic illness has become extinct for the first time.

"Last year not a single Jewish baby throughout North America was born with Tay-Sachs," says Prof. Robert Desnick of the Department of Human Genetics at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. Prof. Desnick is in Israel as the guest of Jerusalem's Hadassah hospitals. He said yesterday that of the 10 babies born in North America in 2003 with Tay-Sachs, not a single one was Jewish. Figures from Israel paint a similar picture.