I read Arthur Caplan’s criticism of the personalized gene tests that some companies insist we must buy to gain control over our future health. I could not help wondering if his criticism is applicable also to the idea that biobanks should inform research participants about incidental findings about their genes.

Caplan rejects the crystal ball view of genetic information that is utilized in the marketing for commercial gene tests: the image that genetic information is uniquely predictive about YOUR future health.

The crystal ball image is a prejudice. It is a gene myth that makes people believe they MUST get genetic information to control their future health. It is a myth that makes people think they have a RIGHT to look into the crystal ball, now that this uniquely powerful instrument is available.

But disease risk is the result of complex interactions between genes and environment, and “no one knows how a single person’s lifestyle, upbringing and environment interacts with their particular genes to create risks,” Caplan writes.

If this is true and genetic information in abstraction is far from predictive, then I cannot avoid worrying about how the crystal ball image shapes also the ethical discussion about incidental findings in genomic biobank research.

In this discussion, accidentally discovered individual genetic variation is sometimes described as a good that participants have a right to be informed about, in return for the biological material they donate to the biobank.

If Caplan is right and such information typically is not worth the money, how can it be a good that participants have a right to receive such information from the biobank in return for their sample?

Do well-meant ethical arguments sometimes resemble unethical marketing campaigns?

Pär Segerdahl

Approaching future issues - the Ethics Blog