Breast cancer awareness pin Image by iStock

By Naomi Zeveloff July 15, 2016

Public health officials trying to fight breast cancer in Australia find the country’s Jewish population especially challenging.

That’s because Australia’s Jewish community of 112,000 is overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, or of European origin, and counts a high number of descendents of Holocaust survivors, said Lesley Andrews, a doctor at Prince of Whales hospital in Randwick, Australia. Andrews presented at “Lessons from the Jewish Genome,” a conference on Jewish genetics in Haifa on July 13.

Ashkenazi Jews are about 10 times more likely than the general population to have BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, those harmful mutations that can lead to the development of breast cancer.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The decision to get tested for these gene mutations often hinges on family history. If other female relatives were diagnosed with breast cancer, it’s a clear sign that a woman should get tested herself. But many Australian Jews don’t know their family’s long-term cancer history because their family ties were severed in the Holocaust.

Andrews, along with researchers Nicole Cousens and Bettine Meiser, conducted a survey in the Australian Jewish community about the possibility of creating community program that would make it easier for Australian Jews to get tested, regardless of family breast cancer history. The “bottom line” is saving women’s lives, Andrews said.

Of the 370 respondents, “97 percent supported a Jewish community-based BRCA 1/2 testing program, and 66% reported being personally interested in undergoing the test,” according to an abstract provided by the researchers.

Andrews and her co-researchers proposed creating an interactive web site to support Jewish community members with counseling around the topic of genetic testing.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected] or on Twitter @naomizeveloff

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re in the middle of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 22.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount