Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing: Public Right or Public Harm?

Authors

  • Libby Greismann Stanford University

Keywords:

ethics, society, genetics, rights

Abstract

Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing is a new technology that provides consumers with relative risks of over 90 diseases, conditions, and traits, bypassing the healthcare profession completely, allowing private companies to market their products directly to consumers. Worries have emerged about the risks of consumer vulnerability in light of the average person's ignorance about genetics, and subsequent consequences of uninformed decisions about personal health. Thus the issue emerges of whether the government has the right to regulate the technology at all, or whether this regulation would be infringing on the protectable interest of knowing information about your own body.

 

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Published

2009-08-05

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2009)

Section

Research Articles

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