Current ethical and legal issues in health-related direct-to-consumer genetic testing

Research output: Contribution to journalReviewResearchpeer-review

A variety of health-related genetic testing is currently advertized directly to consumers. This article provides a timely overview of direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT) and salient ethical issues, as well as an analysis of the impact of the recently adopted regulation on in vitro diagnostic medical devices on DTC GT. DTC GT companies currently employ new testing approaches, report on a wide spectrum of conditions and target new groups of consumers. Such activities raise ethical issues including the questionable analytic and clinical validity of tests, the adequacy of informed consent, potentially misleading advertizing, testing in children, research uses and commercialization of genomic data. The recently adopted regulation on in vitro diagnostic medical devices may limit the offers of predisposition DTC GT in the EU market.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPersonalized Medicine
Volume14
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)433-445
Number of pages13
ISSN1741-0541
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sep 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Future Medicine Ltd.

    Research areas

  • consumer genetics, consumer genomics, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, genetic counseling, genetic testing, informed consent, IVD Regulation

ID: 369542712