[daguy]

People here have said that there is no baldness gene, but after doing some research on the web, it reads like they did. Can someone here explain to me how baldness is not genetic and provide some kind of link?

Can someone explain this?

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00480.htm

[hairguy]

I balded and balded and balded... and then balded some more. Much more; til I had a bowling ball with a skimpy fringe. Male pattern baldness; same as my dad and his dad. We just ALL happen to be assuredly in the same genetic family as we look so much alike; no mailman tarried mid-morning.

Then I stopped shampooing. I regrew and regrew and regrew... and am still regrowing. Maybe it was a bald gene that ...after a few months without shampoo... did a 360 degree turnaround and became a recessive 'bald gene'? What are the odds? Please google that; I can't even balance my checkbook.

I see that your "research" site is a .gov. .gov is a Red Flag for me; especially as I'm from Chicago where "government" and "shenanigan" are interchangeable synonyms. The St. Patrick's Day parade is a favorite here as nearly every politician has a piece of Blarney Stone on their keychain. The only thing that I'd believe from 'the government' about baldness is that bald baboon butts are genetic. Now google "chemical industry lobbyist contributions to Congress" and "government disinformation practices". The phrase "genetic baldness" ...or variants... really means "Big Tax Revenue Bucks".

I'm sure that someone knowledgeable ...and kindly... will soon be along to properly address your question. But I do Thank You for asking it. Skepticism should be as unrelenting as government graft.

[Cristove]

Not to point out the obvious here, but there’s a lot of unscientific language (or very scientific, it depends on your opinion of medical science) in this response:

“Some studies have concluded that this type of baldness is caused by an autosomal gene situated somewhere on chromosomes 1 through 22, not on the X or Y chromosomes. The exact chromosomal location has not yet been identified”

Some studies. Somewhere. Has not yet been. In other words, some people, someplace, think something, based on some logic.

“This means that some other gene or genes must be influencing the way the gene is expressed”

I read this argument a few years ago. This is the ‘new logic’ to refute the puzzlement of the Human Genome Project. ‘Sure, we didn’t find a gene. But we found some chromosomes that seem to do something, so it must be a combination of chromosomes in some form we don’t understand.’ Or, in English, it doesn’t make sense, it must be a combination of things we sort of understand working in a way we really don’t understand at all. When all else has failed, justify with double speak.

The article goes on to make what I find a rather large leap in logic: we are to assume that some unknown chromosome is at work. Since chromosomes come in pairs and females don’t regularly go bald, the logic must be that it is only one of the chromosomes that is afflicted and reacts to forces beyond understanding. But the conjecture that follows is puzzling in itself: “Males who have just one copy of the gene will, of course, also have one copy of the corresponding non-baldness gene, since all our genes occur in pairs. In other words, these males are heterozygous for the gene.” This is a bold step from postulating the very existence of such a gene or chromosome—-giving your creation specific traits.

And then goes the justification, the ‘feel sorry for the scientist’ moment: “DNA-language is not so easy to understand even when we can read the sequence.”

I frankly find this pretty hard to believe. I suffer the hereditary neurological-vision impairment latent nystagmus. This ailment has since been tracked to chromosome Xq26-q27. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9973299&dopt=Citation )

I ask you, which of these conditions do you think has had more funding to track down genetic cause? My ailment, which afflicts one in about two thousand, or the one that gets about one in three?

Well, the Doc has something to say on that: “In general, it is probably easier for scientists to secure funding for research into serious medical conditions than for research into cosmetic situations like baldness that do not have a huge impact on people's health.” A nice altruistic thought, but scientists do not pay for science, and what is in the public’s best interests is hardly primary on anyone’s mind—-if it was, we’d have national health care. Business runs the world and if a process could be patented to ‘cure’ baldness, or even make it an absolutely certain genetic doom, you better believe it is getting every dime Upjohn and Dupont have to put into it.

[Norwood Schmorwood]

[Cristove]

I didn't know that Norwood, but it doesn't surprise me. Pfizer has a big branch (HQ? I never really looked into it) in Ann Arbor and most of the grads from my university hope to get in. In 2003 they screwed over a large group of interns in the business program, citing 'economic reasons,' and canceled most of their affiliations with my school.

Swell guys.

_________________
So, what do I look like? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't tell me. Let's see, two legs, two arms, two hands, slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle... hair! I'm not bald! Ooh... big hair. The Doctor, Doctor Who: Children in Need

[Norwood Schmorwood]

Don't get me started on Pfizer--I'll never pfinish. What really pissed off people around here--besides the secrecy and company doubletalk surrounding the cuts--was that the Pharmacia researchers had worked 12-hour days and weekends for two years to meet the ambitious goals the company set for them. In the process, they became the most productive research site in the operation. As thanks, Pfizer scuttled their various units and sent them packing.

Meanwhile, Pfizer spares no expense at its lavish NYC board meetings and other affairs, and CEO Hank McKinnell picks up some kind of humanitarian-in-business award from his alma mater, Stanford. He has no idea how many lives he's mangled. Pfizer basically bought Pharmacia for parts--it wanted some of the valuable drugs that Pharmacia-Upjohn held the patent on, including Rogaine. Yet the first thing it did was disband the very research units that had developed those leading drugs. Does that make any sense?

[hairguy]

NEW getitback.us file: http://www.getitback.us/geneticbaldness.html

Click the text; it's an activated link. There is NO LINK back to the file ...yet. That will happen on this coming Monday, Sept. 12. Then, I'll repost the revised main page of getitback even if more Before and After pictures haven't been put up. College is back in session and getitback has a large audience there; my daily Activity Report says so.

The idea for the new file resulted from this thread; especially cristove's analytical reply about the .gov "research" site mentioned by daguy. During one of my several "careers", I made truck cartage deliveries to Argonne National Laboratory, the compound housing that very .gov site.