The following is a summary.
Pharmacogenetics is poised to provide medical practitioners with crucial information about their patients’ responses to various prescription drugs, effectively expanding upon current dosage guidelines by identifying what, if any, genetic variants exist in each individual. However, widespread adoption of pharmacogenetics as a diagnostic and prescriptive tool poses multiple ethical concerns, including:
- Is pharmacogenetics a good allocation of scarce resources?
- What constitutes convincing evidence of clinical utility, and who should decide?
- Will all individuals have equal access to the benefits of pharmacogenetics?
- How will the field address the rights of individuals to know (or not to know) their genetic information?
- How do the ethics of open consent compare with those of traditional consent?
View the original article here: Ethical Issues in Pharmacogenetics
Additional Resources:
- “Health Answers: Who should get prenatal genetic counseling?” Boston Globe
- “Customer Disservice?” The DNA Exchange
