Surprise Jewish question being put to Queensland patients

As tensions rise over the conflict in the Middle East, a high-profile clinic has been forced to reveal exactly why they must ask this ‘sensitive’ question.

As tensions in Australia rise over the conflict in the Middle East, one of the state’s most high-profile breast screen clinics accepts that a booking portal question asking patients if they are of Jewish origin is “sensitive due to current global events”.

But the surprise question posed by The Wesley Hospital’s Breast Clinic is about health not religion and is an internationally approved breast cancer screening tool used in clinics worldwide.

Are you of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage? is one of the questions in the clinic’s patient information portal.

“Women with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage are at higher risk than the general population for the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene,” a clinic spokesman said.

“We recognise that this topic may be sensitive due to current global events and all patient information is compliant under the Privacy Act of 1988. All patients are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their religious or cultural background,” the spokesman said.

In the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict some Australian Jews have reported they are fearful of retaliation.

According to Sydney Cancer Genetics, people with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage — Eastern European background including German, Polish or Russian — are more likely to carry one of three specific mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2. The risk of disease is about 20 times more than for the general population.

“Some genetic changes (mutations or pathogenic variants) are more common in certain groups of people than others. These mutations are referred to as “Founder Mutations”. They occur when people with the same background remain in a separate group due to religious, cultural or geographic reasons.Some founder mutations have been passed down over hundreds or even thousands of years,” the genetics website states.