Abstract
Imagine the following: you are a healthy middle-aged adult. Breast, ovarian, or prostate cancer runs in your family. Knowing of your potential increased susceptibility to these diseases, your physician recommends that you participate in an ongoing, local research project. As your physician explains, the research project, which encourages enrollment of high-risk individuals and their families, bases participation on those with family histories such as yours. Upon enrollment, the research project uses a DNA based genetic test to detect the mutated gene' that increases your likelihood of developing the tested-for disease by eighty percent. Your physician is careful to point out that testing positive for a mutated gene only results in a higher probability, not an absolute certainty, of developing the disease? Although there is no present cure for these diseases, your physician explains that future research hopes to develop suitable preventive measures or cures through genetic counseling or gene therapy. However, your physician warns you that a positive test result could leave you feeling powerless, depressed, and wishing you had elected not to undergo testing. In addition, knowing that your genes predispose you to disease can affect how you view and interact with your environment or make important life decisions, such as marriage and child birth.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Nathalie
(2001)
"The Right to Genetic Privacy? Are We Unlocking
the Secrets of the Human Genome Only to Risk
Insurance and Employment Discrimination?,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 2000:
No.
3, Article 8.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2000/iss3/8