Ethical issues in genomics

Genetic testing

  • Maybe you don’t want to know, especially if it’s untreatable
    • emotional consequences
  • Who pays?
  • Not 100%
    • Accuracy
    • Genetic variants indicate risk

Identification

  • Crime scenes - accuracy? contamination?
    • each person has unique variants
    • how are we doing this identification?
      • comparing to a population
    • errors
    • taking someone’s DNA because they’ve been arrested

Personal genomic medicine

  • Assuming everyone’s genome is on file can they be discriminated against?
    • how about your insurance?
  • Who pays for genomic testing for personal medicine or the medicine itself?
  • Rare variants may need special medication to be effective but it’s not worth developing this
    • Majority - variants
    • Majority - race / ethnicity

Intellectual property

  • Can you patent genome data?
  • If you have a method to alter genomes (positively) it might be expensive for treatments
  • But we want to encourage pharm to invest in genome tech