When is the right time to have your child's genome sequenced?
/Every new technology will raise questions about its potential and effects, especially in regards to children. So it should be no surprise that now, as genome sequencing technology becomes cheaper, better, and more accessible to consumers, some important and sometimes impassioned conversations are going to have to happen. For some perspective, people had grave concerns about kids playing Dungeons & Dragons when it first became popular. The article below does a nice job covering some important points to consider.
Now You Can Genetically Test Your Child For Disease Risks. Should You?
Genomics is cheaper and more available then ever, but its usefulness for parents has yet to be proven…
“Most direct-to-consumer genetic testing services still require that patients be at least 18 years old. But there are workarounds. The popular at-home DNA test 23andMe requires that users be 18, but parents can order $199 kits for their offspring and send back their saliva through the mail, according to spokesman Andy Kill. (Kill says the company doesn't have statistics on how many children’s samples it has received.) And in April, the FDA ruled that 23andMe could release reports about patients’ risks for diseases, including Parkinson’s and late-onset Alzheimer’s diseases.
As testing children for genetic diseases becomes available to more parents, it is raising difficult ethical questions. For instance: Would the knowledge that your kid might get sick someday make you treat them differently? “There’s a concern that parents might connect to kids in a different way if they knew something negative about their future,” says Laventhal. Perhaps you'd be proactive by pushing your daughters to freeze their eggs at a young age, if you knew they were at risk for cancers and might undergo cancer treatments that could hurt their fertility.
“You’re going to create a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety and make parents crazy,” adds Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, who researches genetic testing policy at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. “
