Should People Know About the Results of Their Genome Screening?

If you were at higher risk for developing a condition like Alzheimer's disease or breast cancer, would you want to know about it?

With rapid advances in genome sequencing, researchers are learning more about people's susceptibility to certain diseases, and a host of ethical questions about whether people are entitled to information yielded by their genes are causing scientists concern.

In order to help answer this question, a British research institute introduced a new online survey designed to gauge people's opinions, asking questions such as whether relevant findings from genome studies should be shared with research participants and whether other information uncovered during analysis should also be shared.

A team of ethicists from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute developed the tool because of a disagreement with the current practice of keeping findings anonymous and not revealing information that could impact people's health later, according to a press release.

"Although the scientists might be trying to find the genetic basis of one disease, e.g. breast cancer, by virtue of looking across all genes in one go, they might uncover...