The moral and ethical complexity of genetic research

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-14/college-or-funeral-is-mother-s-wish-denied-on-dna-results.html

by siganakis • 14 years ago

2 1 14 years ago

siganakis• 14 years ago

I think that there is a feeling in the community among many people that all genetic information should be freely available, which at this stage I feel is wrong. When people go to a doctor, they expect answers, and the reality is that in many cases the researchers just don't know. This technology is so new, relatively unproven and potentially dangerous that circumstances such as the one you describe are likely to continue to arise.

An interesting thought experiment would be, what if Mr Lyons had been wrong, and had claimed that the fetus was carrying the mutation when he was not? What if the test had been compromised and he had told the Mrs Grondahl that her child was going to be sick when she wasn't?

In this type of new research, the chances of the researcher getting it wrong are very high. It takes years for people to truly understand the complex nature of disease and its interaction with DNA.

With this type of research, I feel that we are going to see a number of incidences where the researchers do in fact get it wrong, and do a lot of damage by being cavalier with their findings.

Medical research moves slowly for a reason.

The moral and ethical complexity of genetic research

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