Update: FDA taking another (public) look at DTC genetic tests. Genomics Law selleck kinase inhibitor Report 2011. Available at www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2011/02/08/update-fda-taking-another-public-look-at-dtc-genetic-tests/. Accessed 4 Jun 2011 Wilson JM, Jungner YG (1968) Principles and practice of screening for disease. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland. Available at whqlibdoc.who.int/php/WHO_PHP_34.pdf. Accessed 4 Jun 2011″
“Introduction In the years 2010 and 2011, revolutionary steps in noninvasive prenatal diagnosis
(NIPD) were reported. It is now possible to sequence cell-free foetal DNA in maternal serum to detect Down syndrome, DUB inhibitor and in principle, it should also be possible to detect many more genetic disorders (Chiu et al. 2011; Lo et al. 2010; Fan and Quake 2010). Although the first proof-of-principle NIPD tests are especially targeted at women who have high risk of carrying a foetus with Down syndrome, it is envisaged that in the near future such tests would become available for all pregnant women. The uptake of diagnostic testing is currently partly constrained because of the risk of iatrogenic abortion induced by invasive chorionic villus sampling or amniotic fluid test. To date serum screening can only assess risk for neural tube defects and Down syndrome. If these risk assessment tests were replaced by highly reliable noninvasive tests more women
might opt for testing. Would NIPD testing become routinely available, this would mean a new phase in a long process of increasing possibilities to detect foetal abnormalities
in pregnant women that ATM/ATR inhibitor clinical trial started in the 1950s. Whenever new technological options, such as genetic tests, become available often political and public debates are called for to discuss the social and ethical ramifications. The advent of NIPD led a commentator in the journal Nature to state: ‘That possibility challenges all societies to decide for which ends and by what means they want such tests to be used’ (Greely 2011). Similar debates took place in earlier phases of introducing and expanding prenatal genetic testing and screening. In this article, we will reflect on the dynamics of the discussion on these issues in the Netherlands during the past 30 years. Whereas other authors have written on prenatal screening in the Netherlands (Stemerding Dynein and van Berkel 2001; Toom and van Berkel 2003; Popkema and Harbers 2005; Meijer et al. 2010) and we have outlined these discussions before (van El et al. 2010a),1 the focus of this account will be on the tension between individual considerations versus collective ramifications regarding certain technologies. Whereas reproduction is key to any society, balancing the tension between the interest of the individual and the collective regarding genetic reproductive issues is a delicate issue in modern democracies and a challenge for governmental policy making.