Statistics
There are particular ethnic groups that have a pretty high risk in either being a carrier or getting Tay-Sachs. The groups that are mostly at risk are people who are descendants of Ashkanazi Jewish, French-Canadian and Louisiana Cajuns.
CARRIER STATISTICS
Since Tay-Sachs is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, a child needs to inherit both alleles in order to be affected. The possibility that a child is affected by Tay-Sachs depend if either both parents or only one parent is a carrier of Tay-Sachs. When the parents of the family are carriers, there are four possible outcomes. According to Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation (2007), " there is a 25% chance both parents do not pass the gene mutation to the child; a 50% chance one of the parents passes the gene mutations; and a 25% chance both parents pass the gene mutation."
However, in a family that only has one parent that is a carrier, no child can be affected. The possible outcomes are that the family has a 50% chance of having normal children who did not inherit the mutated gene and there is a 50% chance of having children who are carriers who did inherit the mutated gene.
There are 1 in 27 people who are carriers of Tay-Sachs in people who are eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish decent, French- Canadian living near the St. Lawrence River, and Louisiana Cajuns. There is also a 1 in 50 chance that people who are Irish-American who carries the gene. There are 1 in 250 people from the general population that could be carriers. " In the US alone there are over 1.2 million Tay-Sachs carriers and the vast majority of those people have never heard of the disease" (Cure Tay-Sachs Foundation, 2007). Since there are approximately 261,000 Jewish people in Chicago, from the statistic of 1 in 27 Jewish people are carriers that means approximately 9666 people are carriers in Chicago.
Disease statistics
According to CATS Foundation (2014), there are 1 in 360,000 people in the European & American population who has Tay-Sachs. There are 1 in 2,900 people from the Ashkenazi Jewish population who are affected. There are 1 in 10,000 people in the Irish-American population that express the mutated allele. Also there are 1 in 3,600 people who are affected by Tay-Sachs.
Since there are about 261,000 Jewish people in the Chicago population, from the statistic that 1 in 2,900 people are about 90 people who are affected with Tay-Sachs.
Since there are about 261,000 Jewish people in the Chicago population, from the statistic that 1 in 2,900 people are about 90 people who are affected with Tay-Sachs.