Blell Mwenza, Hunter M A
Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom.
Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2019 Mar 29;6:48. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2019.00048. eCollection 2019.
The growth in the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry poses a number of challenges for healthcare practice, among a number of other areas of concern. Several companies providing this service send their customers reports including information variously referred to as genetic ethnicity, genetic heritage, biogeographic ancestry, and genetic ancestry. In this article, we argue that such information should not be used in healthcare consultations or to assess health risks. Far from representing a move toward personalized medicine, use of this information poses risks both to patients as individuals and to racialized ethnic groups because of the way it misrepresents human genetic diversity.
直接面向消费者的基因检测行业的发展给医疗实践带来了诸多挑战,在许多其他令人担忧的领域中也是如此。几家提供这项服务的公司向客户发送报告,其中包含各种被称为基因种族、基因遗传、生物地理血统和基因血统的信息。在本文中,我们认为此类信息不应在医疗咨询中使用,也不应被用于评估健康风险。这种信息远非迈向个性化医疗的举措,由于它对人类基因多样性的错误表述方式,使用此类信息会给患者个体以及被种族化的族群带来风险。