How Much Should Patients Know About Their Own Genome?

In April, the American College of Medical Genetics recommended that all labs sequencing the human genome report on medically actionable mutations of 57 genes, whether or not requested by the physician or patient.

In an article cowritten for JAMA, Robert Klitzman, Director of Columbia’s M.S. in Bioethics program, argues that first we must understand how common these genes are in the general population, whether patients and the parents of pediatric patients want such information, and if so, what they will do with it.