The genetic information you didn’t ask for

The following is an edited excerpt.

Is it a doctor’s responsibility to tell you if a disease is written on your genetic code? And if so, do you really want him or her to tell you?

Thanks to new guidelines by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, this may soon be a reality for many Americans. Last week, the national organization — made up of genetics specialists — published a report urging doctors who sequence a patient’s full set of genes to also test them for 24 genetic conditions, and alert the patient, regardless of the patient’s wishes to know or not.

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Read the full post here: The Genetic Information You Didn’t Ask For

Further Reading:

• Patients Should Get DNA Information, Report Recommends. Science Insider.

• Recommendations for Reporting of Incidental Findings in Clinical Exome and Genome Sequencing [PDF]. American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.