Mentally ill patients need protection from inappropriate genetic testing

People with mental disorders must be protected from inappropriate genetic testing, a report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has recommended.

The working party, chaired by Dame Fiona Caldicott, principal of Somerville College, Oxford, investigated the ethical issues surrounding research and its applications into the genetics of mental disorders. Dame Fiona said: “In response to the recent and frequent discovery of genes associated with a variety of diseases, there is a temptation to rely on ‘geneticisation' as the ultimate answer to …