Bioethical challenges in personalised medicine

Autores/as

  • Jordi Camí Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, Barcelona

Resumen

Most of the ethical, legal and moral questions that result from the concept of personalised medicine are deeply related to genetic testing. Firstly, there is an increasing concern about the standardisation, accuracy, usefulness, and interpretation of the results provided by direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Secondly, genetic testing should be restricted by medical prescription and as such, there is an urgent need to train healthcare professionals so that they are also able to provide specific genetic counselling. Thirdly, genetic testing involves a new dimension of ethics of privacy, because the results obtained can affect your relatives and in particular your offspring. Furthermore, it can also lead to new forms of genetic or economic discrimination. All these factors should be taken into consideration so that the expectations
created within the general public with regard to personalised
medicine are more realistic.

Keywords: personalised medicine ∙ genetic testing ∙ risk factors ∙ genetic counselling ∙ genetic discrimination

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Número

Sección

Bioethics and Social Responsabilities