Wow...I think "All My Children" is the first soap to do a storyline about people who are their own twins (chimeras).

Discovery Health is doing this documentary called "I am my own Twin" Saturday, February 3 at 8pm Eastern (7pm Central).

Discovery Health are also showing this story where a woman had to fight in court to prove that her children were her biological children even though their DNA didn't match. The judge had ordered her kids to be put up in foster homes. She was pregnant at the time and the judge decided to have that baby's DNA tested to see what was going on.

The prosecutor in the case did some research of his own and find an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about chimerism. And that's how the woman found out she was a chimera since the DNA didn't match the newborn baby. They did further testing and finally found a genetic match in the woman.

The judge started to question his decisions in other paternity DNA test when he denied a father visitation rights to their children because the DNA didn't match and he wondered if they were chimeras too. Also, that court started to wonder about criminal cases and what if there were chimeras in some of these cases where they either convict someone or let someone go based on DNA.

Chimeras are more easily discovered when one half of the DNA is female and the other DNA is male and the person has one half of the body that is female and one half of the body that is male. Chimeras happens when two fertilized eggs are fused together. If the fertilized eggs aren't fused together the most likely result is Siamese twins.

Anyway, I'm glad that "All My Children" introduced this topic on the soap because I had never heard of this condition until the Annie McDermott character. People could be walking around and are chimeras and don't even know it unless they have lots of DNA tests done on their body in various places on their body.

Thank you for this. An interesting read and I missed the Discovery eip by 2 hrs!!! I'm going to check for other showtimes.

~HotMom

Thank you for this. An interesting read and I missed the Discovery epi by 2 hrs!!! I'm going to check for other showtimes.

~HotMom

Thank you for this. An interesting read and I missed the Discovery epi by 2 hrs!!! I'm going to check for other showtimes.

~HotMom

You're welcome.

Discovery Health will be re-airing this documentary (I am my own Twin) several more times. The next airing is 11 pm Eastern/Pacific (10pm Central) on Saturday, Feb. 3. And also on Sunday, Feb. 4 at 2pm Eastern/Pacific (1pm Central).

Crap! Missed 11pm too. Well, I'll have to shoot for Feb 4th!

~HotMom

I love those discovery channel health shows. I actually saw this documentary about a year ago and It seems like they bring some of their documentary's back ever so often and show it a whole bunch of times with a few weeks span.

The I am my own twin is a very interesting topic to me. I wonder how many people this affects. In real life most people do not have to get DNA tests on a regular basis like they on soaps so I bet this could be affecting people and they do not even know it.

Kind of on topic I saw another Discovery Health show where there is twin embryos and the one twin starts to grow inside the other twin. So in essence the baby is "pregnant". They had an ultra sound of a woman and then you could see the baby, then you could see another baby inside the baby. That is just weird! The other focus on this show was on a boy who was about 8 who lived in an undeveloped country and had a huge lump on his stomach. They removed it from his stomach and I can't describe what it was that they removed. It was his twin that was probably about 3/4 the size of a basketball and it had hair kind of partically devloped fingers, face, feet, and genitaila. It was all gray and it looked like a monster. It was one of the most creepy/interesting documenties I have ever seen.

Hmm - honestly I thought the whole 'chimera' thing was lame...but now that I know it's a real thing and there has a been a professional documentary done on the whole thing - I'm impressed with AMC for doing it...

Never heard of a "chimera" before. But that's really interesting.

Wait, what?!

IF AMC goes through with this story, I'll probably hate it . Just reading the first post in this thread confused the heck outta me! I like my AMC romantic, family-oriented, HOT and traditional, with a twist. This is just pushing the envelope a bit TOO much.

Wait, what?!

IF AMC goes through with this story, I'll probably hate it . Just reading the first post in this thread confused the heck outta me! I like my AMC romantic, family-oriented, HOT and traditional, with a twist. This is just pushing the envelope a bit TOO much.

to late. AMC already did it.

I tried to look for the documentrary but I dont think I have that channel. Discovery Health is something speerate from the Discovery channel?

I mean, it's interesting as a scientific fact, but not that interesting as a plot point. How much story can be milked from it? It is what it is, an anomaly. (It's a hell of a lot more feasible than an aborted fetus that came to life!) It might be slightly more interesting if Annie were a character we'd known for years, and she had long-time ties to the Pine Valley community. But that's my main criticism of the Zarf story: the writers didn't have the balls to tell this story with the offspring of a long-standing Pine Valley citizen (like say a Petey Courtlandt, son of Opal and Palmer). That way, we'd not only see his/her psychological journey but also the effect it has on family and community (instead of the contrived knee-jerk bigotry of Adam/Jonathan and the salaciousness of a serial killer story).

Annie's just some chick who's sucking up airtime while faves that we've invested in like Dixie, Brooke, Livia, Opal, etc. have disappeared from our screens.

That said, all of this reminds me of that scene from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Inside the lump he found teeth and a spinal cord. Yes. Inside the lump was my twin.

Edited February 4, 200718 yr by Faulkner

Wait, what?!

IF AMC goes through with this story, I'll probably hate it . Just reading the first post in this thread confused the heck outta me! I like my AMC romantic, family-oriented, HOT and traditional, with a twist. This is just pushing the envelope a bit TOO much.

Like Cheap said, it has already happened.

It wasn't this huge long-drawn out storyline....but last fall when Dixie/Tad thought Emma was Kate (bc of Dr. Madden), they did a DNA test on Annie and realized she wasn't a match - but Annie knew she was her daughter and Ryan found online this article about 'chimeras' and thought maybe Annie was a chimera - something about having 2 sets of DNAs or something. Anyway, they did like 5 DNA tests on Annie and the last one finally proved she was a match and Annie was allowed to take Emma back home with her (bc the courts put her in foster care after the first match failed).

Like Cheap said, it has already happened.

It wasn't this huge long-drawn out storyline....but last fall when Dixie/Tad thought Emma was Kate (bc of Dr. Madden), they did a DNA test on Annie and realized she wasn't a match - but Annie knew she was her daughter and Ryan found online this article about 'chimeras' and thought maybe Annie was a chimera - something about having 2 sets of DNAs or something. Anyway, they did like 5 DNA tests on Annie and the last one finally proved she was a match and Annie was allowed to take Emma back home with her (bc the courts put her in foster care after the first match failed).

Oh, my!

I wasn't watching the show back then, so OBVIOUSLY, I didn't mean to look like a fool suggesting the story shouldn't go forward. Wow. Oh well, thank God I came on AFTER that confusing plot point!

Wait, what?!

IF AMC goes through with this story, I'll probably hate it . Just reading the first post in this thread confused the heck outta me! I like my AMC romantic, family-oriented, HOT and traditional, with a twist. This is just pushing the envelope a bit TOO much.

But Josh totally rocks, right?!