Tell Them What They Want to Hear

At Genetic Future, Daniel discusses a letter published in last week's Nature in which Kenneth Kosik and Francisco Lopera argue that, unlike a previous Nature article suggests, not all people are resilient when faced with bleak genetic test results, and the authors give an example of a man who stated he would shoot himself in the head if he knew he had the variant for Alzheimer's disease. Kosik and Lopera wonder if knowing people's genetic polymorphisms for risk-taking would help identify people who could handle bad news. Daniel decries this as "techno-paternalism" and asks, "So if a person tests positive for a genetic variant that indicates they'll respond badly to genetic testing results, should you tell them?"