Individuals have a fundamental right to access information about themselves, including genetic information. In order to explain why a child has a right to know their genetic parents, we must not only show why it is important that a child, once knowing they are donor-conceived, has access to information regarding their donor, but also why it is important that children are told of the nature of their conception in … Genomics is affected by this global health imbalance and is currently experiencing a substantial divide that is impeding the progress of genetic sciences in low- to middle-income countries. Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/. 1984 Dec;10(4):179-82. doi: 10.1136/jme.10.4.179. Information about one's genetic makeup is personal and private. A district court initially rejected the woman’s case, but that decision was later overturned. The appeal court concluded that situations could arise where a doctor had a duty of disclosure to a patient’s relatives, and that preventing the trial on the grounds that it posed a threat to the doctor-patient relationship was therefore not necessarily in the public interest. Forensic Sci Int. | The ease of genetic testing has brought this question to the fore. How to sterilise scalpels when no electricity is available, Giant prehistoric sharks left their young in nurseries, Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate. The conflict of understanding the genetic make-up of man and his knowledge of it. Identifying such situations is left to doctors’ judgment. Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. Some worry this is an impossible task, but it has to try. However, professional organisations such as the General Medical Council recognise that breaching patient confidentiality may sometimes be necessary, in circumstances where not doing so would probably result in death or serious harm. While this strategy has effectively reduced the prevalence of some genetic diseases like thalassaemia, for which there is still no cure, it is argued by some that it limits the indivi… As far as medical ethics is concerned it is obvious that certain medical activities relating to the physical and psychological integrity of human beings require informed consent. Cases in Britain and Germany are at odds with each other. | J Med Ethics. Am J Psychiatry. It is the law’s job to balance these rights for the modern age. She later tested positive for the Huntington’s-causing mutation, meaning that her child has a 50% chance of having it too. Unlike in Britain, in Germany the right not to know genetic information is protected in law. As these two cases demonstrate, they find themselves in an impossible predicament—damned if they do, damned if they don’t.■, This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "A not-so-merry dance", Sign up to our free daily newsletter, The Economist today, Published since September 1843 to take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”. Although every gene has evolved because of a function that is useful to the organism, some allelic variants in particular genes lead to specific diseases. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. There are, ostensibly, no limits to what my DNA may be used for, now, or in the future. While it is important to also consider the accuracy, interpretation, validity and utility of tests, this underlying principle should guide policy. USA.gov. Both cases involve Huntington’s disease (HD), a heritable neurodegenerative disorder. No person has a right to intrude on this privacy without serious cause. How to reproduce, how we breathe, what phenotype we have, how we live, what disease will occur, how we behave in adverse conditions, how we metabolize; all this information is broadly categorized as biological information. If the right to know is legally recognised in Britain later this year, that may remove some uncertainties, but it will also create new ones. She sued the doctor, who had acted with his patient’s consent. The landmark Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act was passed by U.S. Congress in 2008 to prohibit unfair treatment based on DNA information—particularly among health insurance companies—but does not apply to providers of life, disability, or long-term care insurance. Medicine, genetics and the law In genetic disease, who has the right to know—or not know—what? Both children being minors at the time, they could not legally be tested for the disease, which, as the woman’s lawyers pointed out, is currently incurable. In 2014 the German Federal Court of Justice handed down a final judgment, once again rejecting her case. Joling wanted to know more about her risks and the options available to help prevent herself from getting cancer. In Britain doctors have a duty under common law to protect a patient’s confidentiality, and are released from that duty only with the patient’s consent. ... And if someone else gave us the test, that other person has equal rights to our results until we pay them back. Who “Owns” Your Genetic Information? The ethics of practice in adolescent psychiatry. They argued that she was therefore helpless to act on the information, and as a result suffered a reactive depression that prevented her from working. Employers have no right to require that an individual submit to genetic testing when that person shows no signs of a disease that would interfere with his or her current ability to do a job. IN THIS ISSUE For each of the approximately 31,000 genes in our DNA, we inherit one allele from our mother and one allele from our father. A single mutation gives rise to HD, meaning that every child of an affected parent has a 50% chance of inheriting it. Initially the case was struck out, on the grounds that letting it go to trial would risk undermining doctor-patient confidentiality. 2005 Oct;25(5):312-27. We could therefore conclude from this that in principle everyone has the right to know everyone else's genetic constitution. 1977 Apr;134(4):420-4. doi: 10.1176/ajp.134.4.420. All rights reserved. As it was, she found out only after giving birth to her daughter. Having conquered computer science, linguistics and aesthetics, the 'informational paradigm' has finally reached bioscience. Any ethical analysis of the accessibility of individual genetic data must therefore be considered both from a medical ethics and from an information ethics point of view. A clinical geneticist believes that if anyone is to own genetic information, it has to be all those who have inherited it and, more importantly, it must be available to all those who might be at risk.
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