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Abstract

Ethical considerations in psychiatric genetics are highly complex and fluid. This review introduces the reader to the wide range of ethical considerations in this field by examining four characteristics of genetic information. First, genetic information may, to a greater or lesser extent, predict a person's future health. Second, learning about one's genotype may have profound psychosocial consequences. Third, genetic information pertains to a person's biological relatives and thus can affect family members, communities, and population groups. Finally, psychiatric genetics is a rapidly evolving field. None of these characteristics is necessarily “exceptional” or unique to genetics, but they provide a useful framework for teasing apart a complex set of ethical considerations. This article reviews conceptual and empirical data that speak to these four characteristics and then presents a set of conceptual frameworks that can be used to systematically analyze the ethics of psychiatric genetic research and clinical genotyping. Finally, directions for future study are described, including the urgent need to gather data on actual risks and benefits of psychiatric genetic research and clinical applications, so that their utility can be assessed and appropriate ethical safeguards identified.

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Published online: 1 July 2010
Published in print: Summer 2010

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Address correspondence to Jinger G. Hoop, M.D., M.F.A., Mental Health Service Line, Edward Hines Jr. Veteran's Administration Hospital, 5000. S. 5th Ave., Hines, IL 60141; e-mail: [email protected]

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CME Disclosure
Jinger G. Hoop, M.D., M.F.A., Edward Hines Jr. Veteran's Administration Hospital, Hines, IL.
Dr. Hoop reports no competing interests.
This work was supported, in part, through the Research for a Healthier Tomorrow Program Development Fund, a component of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
With minor changes, this article was originally published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry and is reprinted with permission.

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