Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: he recent explosion of interest in prognostic genetic testing raises a host of ethical issues for patients, research subjects, physicians, investigators, policymakers, and the public.None of these issues is really new, but all of them have gained new significance as the science of gene finding accelerates and new genetic tests become more widely available.Public expectations are high regarding the potential value of genetic information.This confidence extends to the information obtained from new genetic tests, especially those identifying genes associated with common complex disorders.After all, nearly everyone knows someone with diabetes, heart disease, depression, asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, osteoarthritis, cancer, or any of the other common multifactorial disorders that mark the human condition, and the promise of the Human Genome Project a has always been both to explain the human condition and to ameliorate it.Today, science is increasingly able to assign precise percentages to at least some of the genetic contribution to an individual's chance of developing a common complex condition.This quantification of risk is a seductive enterprise.Simply knowing that many people develop emphysema later in life does not seem to mean as much as knowing that individuals with a particular genetic test result are a specified percentage more likely to develop emphysema than those whose test is negative.But are we
Source: North Carolina Medical Journal
Author: Nancy M. P. King
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2414848708