The clinical use of pharmacogenetic drugs will require that a sample of a patient's DNA be tested before a drug is prescribed. Although pharmacogenetic tests pose fewer risks than genetic tests for disease mutations, they might still reveal personal information that could be used adversely to a patient's interests. Informed consent and privacy of pharmacogenetic test results may be essential in most clinical uses of pharmacogenetic drugs.
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Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges discussions with B. Wilfond and C. Freund, and with his colleagues in the Pharmacogenetics Consortium (A. Buchanan, B. Brody, A. Califano, E. McPherson and J. Kahn), a project of The University of Arizona funded by GlaxoSmithKline, First Genetic Trust and IBM.
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Robertson, J. Consent and privacy in pharmacogenetic testing. Nat Genet 28, 207–209 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/90032
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/90032
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