An Australian researcher is calling for tighter controls on genetic testing, according to News.com.au.
It reports that at least one hospital in Australia has observed a five-fold increase in women with a genetic risk of breast or ovarian cancer seeking preventative surgery, and that people are also seeking ways to prevent other conditions. It adds that while precision medicine has the potential to use people's genetic profiles to help prevent diseases they may be at risk of developing, Bond University's Ray Moynihan tells News.com.au that he's concerned about over diagnosis.
"[A]re we going to start labeling people unnecessarily? Are we going to be diagnosing them with preventive diseases and genetic dispositions when, in fact, they're perfectly healthy?" he adds. "Often you have a very small increased risk and many people found to have an increased risk will not go on to have that problem."
Moynihan tells News.com.au that there's a need to look beyond the hype of the approach and to assess it rigorously. He adds that he's worried that people are seeking unnecessary surgeries.