With concern about its stability, 23andMe should consider what information and protection it owes its users. So should other DTC genetic testing companies.

Breakthroughs in our ability to change the genes of organisms are generating novel capabilities for biological weapons, a form of warfare that has been largely abandoned for decades. Guidance from scientists and bioethicists is needed to avert the threat.

It seems to me a kind of magical thinking to assume that explaining the genetic causes of obesity will reduce stigma when that new explanation is lodged firmly within a broader project of treating, preventing, or curing fatness. Today, drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and now Zepbound are the favored medical solution.

The American chestnut is basically defunct, unless science can rescue it. Genetic manipulation may be the answer.

In his recent piece, “The genes we’re dealt,” Erik Parens puts his finger on cause for concern with what he calls social genomics: while progressives can use insights from this new field to justify combating inequality, conservatives can use them to justify the existence of that same inequality. This pessimistic conclusion—which Parens argues convincingly for—follows from a focus on insights at the societal level, that of a whole population. But there are grounds for optimism by focusing instead on potential insights from social genomics derived from local-level comparisons between different environments. Such insights could point to interventions that progressives and conservatives might just be able to agree on.

The bioethics and legal communities must come together to find ways to move with the same ease of the scientific research community--to transcend the geopolitical borders and jurisdictional concerns that make international regulation so difficult.

Last week, the Trump Administration proposed a new rule that would “require DNA-sample collection from individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted, and from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States.” Collecting DNA of people detained under the Department of Homeland Security is not permitted under U.S. law. The proposed rule aims to change that.

The protections of GINA play a key role in the decision of many of my healthy patients to decide to undergo genetic testing. My criticism is that GINA is unfair to people who might suffer discrimination in health. insurance for non-genetic reasons.

In late April, a suspect thought to be the Golden State Killer, a man who had eluded police for decades after committing a string of murders and rapes in Northern...

The process is fairly simple. You select one of the companies that offer direct-to-consumer genetic tests; pay online; receive a neatly packed kit that contains a tube designed to collect...

Before noninvasive prenatal screening becomes a routine part of gestational care, society needs to have difficult conversations about the ethical implications and establish a paradigm for truly informed consent in...

The Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu, among others, has argued that prospective parents engaging in embryo selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis not only may seek to have genetically enhanced children but...

There is a broad and deep moral conviction that health care should be distributed according to genuine need and not left to the cold mercy of pure market forces or the logic of actuarial fairness. Unfortunately, the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed last week in the House of Representatives, and other legislation threaten to undermine that moral commitment.

Editor’s note: This essay responds to an invitation (issued here and here) to submit commentaries on the ethical implications of partnerships between social media companies and biomedical researchers. The invitation...

Some researchers are at work generating images of people’s faces by relying on DNA samples alone, in a process known as DNA phenotyping.The process involves linking genetic traits and their typical...

In the early 2000s, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and their colleagues published two papers (here and here), which suggested that we could finally begin to tell rather simple but evidence-based stories about...

  Genetic testing to identify the susceptibility of individuals to developing specific disorders or to confirm diagnoses is becoming increasingly common in clinical settings, where it raises a string of ethical...

Ethicists and others have been concerned that the disclosure of genetic information to patients might have negative consequences. The suspicion has been that negative effects, say, becoming depressed, are particularly...