'Do You Really Want to Know?' screens April 21

Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/31/2015 - 8:07am

"Do you Really Want to Know?" is a documentary about the complex emotional, ethical and psychological issues surrounding the new frontier of predictive genetic testing.

The film, by academy award-winning documentary filmmaker John Zaritsky, features Jeff Carroll, assistant professor in the Behavioral Neuroscience program, and his family as they confront the decision of whether or not to be tested for Huntington's Disease (HD).

"Do You Really Want to Know?" will be screened at the Pickford Film Center Tuesday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10.75. Click here to learn more. 

 Huntington's is a degenerative neurological illness that is associated with cognitive decline, emotional disturbances and movement problems.  

Once it strikes, HD slowly destroys the mind and body, with symptoms relentlessly progressing to an inevitable death.  Not only is there no cure for HD, there are no treatments - not even experimental treatments - to slow its progression.  When individuals test positive for the Huntington's Disease mutation, they are effectively receiving a death sentence - the terrible news that a genetic time bomb will someday lead to an awful end.

As more and more genetic tests are developed, "Do You Really Want to Know?" will be a question more and more of us will face - making Huntington's Disease patients the moral pioneers for the rest of us.

Carroll is an HD researcher and editor of HD Buzz, a news feed devoted to sharing HD science news with the global community.  He recently gave the keynote address at the 2015 Huntington's Disease Therapeutics Conference

The event marks the first regional screening of this film, and it will provide you the unique opportunity to have an intimate discussion with the film's Producer, Kevin Eastwood the documentary filmmaker, John Zaritsky and Carroll.