Question

Several lawsuits have been filed recently over the discovery of inherited genetic information that was not disclosed to family members. If your remember your disclosure rules from the Ethics lecture, you are NOT required to disclose your genetic information to anyone AND your doctor does not have permission to disclose it unless you give your permission. In 2018, a daughter discovered after giving birth that her father had Huntingtons disease but had never disclosed this to his family. She also learned she had inherited the gene and that her child had a 50% chance of inheriting it. The woman is suing the hospital and doctors for not disclosing this information as she declared she would have made different reproductive decisions had she known. This and other lawsuits have the chance to change the way medicine deals with genetic information.  

please give your opinion on whether doctors should be required to disclose heritable genetic information to potentially affected family members or whether the tested individual has the right to prevent the sharing of this personal genetic information.

Answer 1

I have been strongly agree the doctor should disclose about heritable genetic information to potentially affected family members and disclose about the risk of developing genetic disease. Because in modern science there are many ways to prevent genetic disorder even it is affected in gene also and this can be treated effectively by gene therapy and other different methods by taking precaution. so the family member's should know the risk and probability of developing hereditary disease and this should be explained by doctor it is the responsibility of doctor and also the responsibility of family members to know there hereditary factors.

In the case of right of doctor to sharing the genetic information to others is fully responsible to the patient who are victim. He or she had right to prevent sharing there genetic information to other's because it maybmay affect there life ,they may be victims'of social stigma and discrimination due to this hereditary problem. First of all this is not a problem of person so everyone has right to keep there genetic information confidentially. and also the sharing of personal information to others without the permission of patient is against the ethics of medical science