asu in the news 02-06-08 to - ASU News - Arizona State University

variances that can be pinpointed.
Genetic counselors use specific criteria established by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network
on who should be tested.
And even if the family history is strong enough to warrant testing, the person who doesn’t have
cancer yet but is wondering whether he or she will get it is not the one who should be tested. The
family member who already has the disease should be tested first, to determine the specific genetic
variation. Then others in the family can be tested.
Testing someone who doesn’t have that specific cancer doesn’t help.
There are ethical considerations.
ASU in the News
All three of the testing Web sites describe their strict privacy features, but after clients receive their
own information, they can dispense it how they choose. ’If you get this testing and find your risk of
having a stroke is higher by 50 percent, and your insurance company knows, you’re not going to get
approved,’ Zaragoza Lao says.
A scary result also could affect employment or promotion chances.
Another ethical consideration is access to the test. ’A thousand dollars might not seem like much
money, but it is,’ Robert says. ’Most people aren’t going to be able to afford it. ’I think there’s an
ethical imperative to emphasize genes in context rather than a gene on its own. A new test that
makes a few people rich and a few people healthy strikes people as an odd way to look at health-care
innovation.’ The results could produce a lot of needless anxiety. ’You’ve taken someone who wants to
take care of something and made them anxious, and I as a family doctor have to deal with that,’
Zaragoza Lao says.
Although personal genome testing is new, Robert is unsure whether the results will actually cause
people to change their lifestyles. ’So far, empirical data show that people don’t take genetic data any
more seriously than other health data, whether to eat better or get more exercise,’ he says. On the flip
side, there are a lot more options available now to delay or prevent onset of a disease, such as
prophylactic surgery to remove the ovaries or breasts in women who have the BRCA1 or BRCA2
mutations.
Eventually, men who are found to have the recently discovered gene-variant combination linked to
prostate cancer could take hormone-blocking drugs to prevent the disease.
Reach the reporter at marybeth.faller@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8167.
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