Family Health History Form: Fill & Download for Free

I was adopted over 60 years ago as a 1 month old infant. A few years ago Illinois changed it’s records laws and I was able to get my birth father’s first name and my birth mother’s last name. Not enough to close the circle. Then my birth father and I independently took AncestryDNA tests. That gave me his last name. He was prominent in the community and his home phone was listed.I called the number, said I was Dave Ptasnik from Seattle, that I was doing genealogical research, and thought it was possible we were related. He invited me to go on, so I asked him about some things I had researched about his past. There is hiding from the internet. Including if his name was Earl Bryant Anderson and if he dated a woman named Doore at so and so high school in the summer of 1956. “Oh, you mean Judy” (HA! Gotcha mom.) I said that she was indeed the one I meant, and that I was probably his and Judy’s son. His first reaction was that Judy had dated a lot of other guys (nice, dad. Throw mom under the bus and go into denial mode) Then I explained that he was a 100% match from a DNA test. That it was just like they do on Maury Povich or Jerry Springer.I said that I was open to more contact, but would really appreciate family health information so I could give my doctors some relevant information. The call ended cordially. I sent off the family health history form to him and his two surviving children. One child had died in a traffic accident years ago. Seems I still have a half brother and half sister on his side. I did not receive any of the forms back. I did, however receive a threatening letter from his lawyer ordering me to never contact him, any of his family, or pretty much anyone else in the lower 48 states again. So that’s how my birth dad reacted.On to my birth mother, Judith Anne Doore. Same drill with the phone call. When I said I believed I was her son by Earl she quietly said “I don’t want to have this conversation.” and hung up. I have one half brother and two half sisters on Judy’s side. I sent Judy and all my half siblings an explanation letter and medical history forms. No forms returned. Thanks mom. That is her reaction.My reaction? Feeling particularly fortunate to have been adopted by my awesome parents Tom and Betty Ptasnik.The story may not be complete. This past year I have had a meningioma brain tumor removed, as well as pre-cancerous intestinal polyps. All of that can run in families. I am going to send all of them a warning that they should get checked out if they are having any neurological symptoms (I was warned by losing my sense of smell), or haven’t had routine colon screening. I will also send them family health forms again to try to find out what other little surprises may be waiting for me.Cheers

I have to disagree with Pat McCormack and Peter Flom here.It is true that many people have published attempts to debunk the book. They fall into two main categories. Some people point out many specific criticisms of the underlying data and the analyses. Many of these are valid. The book addresses difficult complex questions. Other people bring in different data and analyses that point to different conclusions. Many of these are valid as well.So if anyone thought The Bell Curve was sacred text or the last word on these issues, those beliefs have been debunked. But as a reasonable view of the available evidence, the book remains standing. The last 26 years of research have strengthened its basic claims, although we now have more nuanced understanding of the points.The second category of debunkings are passionate—and matched by equally passionate praise from racists. These people do not claim there are better data or methods of analysis, they claim the book is deeply wrong and evil. On the racist side, there are people who claim the book is revolutionary and authoritative, when it is merely a tentative assessment of a murky field.The passion on both sides derives from simple errors that the authors of The Bell Curve caution against in their introduction, and repeatedly throughout the text. Ironically, both passionate anti-racists and racists make the same errors—they are in fact the basic errors that define scientific racism.The main claims of The Bell Curve are of the form, “If you take a large sample of parents with low IQ scores, and a matched sample of parents with high IQ scores, the children of the first group are more likely to live in poverty than the children of the second group.” If this did not involve politically charged measures like IQ and poverty, it would be entirely uncontroversial. People would be surprised if it were not true if, for example, parents with high blood pressure tended to have children who had more heart attacks than children of parents with low blood pressure.How do people get from straightforward population frequency issues to racism, either to support racism or to pillory the authors? There are four steps, all common reasoning errors.Assume that heritable in a statistical sense among subpopulations means something is genetic. The authors are explicitly agnostic on this point. Parents influence their children in many non-genetic ways, and society influences children based on their parentage.Assume that genetic means impossible to change, while environmental means easy to change. The authors show that the opposite is often the case. When doctors look for genetic markers for a disease, it’s not to give up trying to cure it, nor to say it’s natural so there’s no reason to cure it. It’s to understand it better to choose the right cure. Many genetic conditions are treatable, many non-genetic ones are not.Assume the ecological fallacy, that relations between populations can be applied to individual members. The fact that subpopulations with lower average measured IQ have higher poverty rates does not mean individuals in poverty are there because they have low measured IQs.Assume that poverty rates—and other factors the authors study such as crime rates, job success and educational attainment—measure a person’s value. The authors are very clear that moral worth is not affected by such things, and that many poor people, for example, are better and more socially valuable than many rich people. Even crime rates don’t necessarily reflect social worth if law enforcement is biased and if crimes are weighted such that, say, stealing food to feed children is viewed less harshly than illegal toxic waste dumping to get money to buy a third yacht.If you make all four reasoning errors, you can believe that The Bell Curve argues lower average IQ scores means Black Americans have less moral worth and social value than Asian Americans; and that there’s no reason to worry about racial disparities in poverty, incarceration, employment, income or other measures; because it’s all in genes you can’t change, and is natural and therefore no one’s fault.In fact, the authors had a completely different interpretation of their analysis. They thought the data supported the, "fear that a new kind of conservatism is becoming the dominant ideology of the affluent—not in the social tradition of an Edmund Burke or in the economic tradition of an Adam Smith but 'conservatism' along Latin American lines, where to be conservative has often meant doing whatever is necessary to preserve the mansions on the hills from the menace of the slums below." I think the last 26 years have shown this to be prescient, not a wild imagining of racists.The policy recommendations are all in the same spirit that your doctor asks for your family health history. The authors think social policy to fight poverty, crime, discrimination and other ills should be informed by subpopulation IQ measures—not because those averages tell you anything moral or unchangeable about individuals, but because they are important guides to what are likely to be helpful versus unhelpful interventions.

No. Actually most Drs are thrilled to get advanced information about a new patient, be it your family health history or issues yoyou are dealing with it helps them form a plan of treatment and can speed your treatment along.