Health
Polygenic embryo testing: understated ethics, unclear utility – EurekAlert
New technologies are expanding the reach and accessibility of preimplantation genetic testing of human embryos. But what these advances can deliver is still unclear, and a frank assessment of their profound ethical implications is urgently needed, concludes a commentary in Nature Medicine.
The authors are Josephine Johnston, director of research and a research scholar at The Hastings Center, and Lucas J. Matthews, an assistant professor at Columbia University who is a Hastings Center presidential scholar. They cite several ethical questions about the use of polygenic risk scores, or PRS, (which combine the effects of many genetic variants with individual small effects into a single risk estimate) during in vitro fertilization, including:
- PRS exhibit limited predictive accuracy in populations of non-European ancestry.
- Patients may not fully understand the risks and limitations of the tests, and fertility clinics may lack the time and resources to explain them. This problem would be exacerbated if “testing for common diseases [were] bundled into treatment packages or routinized in ways that gloss over details and implications for subsequent care, as appears to have been the case with some prenatal screening tests.”
- Expanded genetic testing, like existing preimplantation genetic tests used to identify embryos with or without specific genes, could be labeled discriminatory because it involves embryo selection on the basis of genetic risks for specific diseases, disabilities, or traits.
The commentary responds to an article in Nature Genetics that describes a method to enable polygenetic testing for 12 common diseases. This method could make preimplantation genetic testing far more common than it is today.
Until now, most of the debates around the preimplantation genetic testing “have been confined to specialist and academic circles and personal challenges for relatively small numbers of people,” Johnston and Matthews write. “The rapid development of fast and affordable molecular genotyping and PRS construction for common conditions . . . could soon make these challenges a reality for countless clinicians and patients.”
Should the new techniques be used to screen embryos for social outcomes, such as educational attainment, “the justice issues will be greatly compounded.”
For more information, contact:
Susan Gilbert
Director of Communications
The Hastings Center
gilberts@thehastingscenter.org
Journal
Nature Medicine
Method of Research
Commentary/editorial
Subject of Research
Human embryos
Article Title
Polygenic Embryo Testing: Understated Ethics, Unclear Utility
Article Publication Date
21-Mar-2022
COI Statement
authors report no conflicts of interest
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
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Alberta Health Services (AHS) has confirmed a case of measles in Edmonton, and is advising the public that the individual was out in public while infectious.
Measles is an extremely contagious disease that is spread easily through the air, and can only be prevented through immunization.
AHS says individuals who were in the following locations during the specified dates and times, may have been exposed to measles.
- April 16
- Edmonton International Airport, international arrivals and baggage claim area — between 3:20 p.m. and 6 p.m.
- April 20
- Stollery Children’s Hospital Emergency Department — between 5 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- April 22
- 66th Medical Clinic (13635 66 St NW Edmonton) — between 12:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- Pharmacy 66 (13637 66 St NW Edmonton) — between 12:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- April 23
- Stollery Children’s Hospital Emergency Department — between 4:40 a.m. to 9:33 a.m.
AHS says anyone who attended those locations during those times is at risk of developing measles if they’ve not had two documented doses of measles-containing vaccine.
Those who have not had two doses, who are pregnant, under one year of age, or have a weakened immune system are at greatest risk of getting measles and should contact Health Link at 1-877-720-0707.
Symptoms
Symptoms of measles include a fever of 38.3° C or higher, cough, runny nose, and/or red eyes, a red blotchy rash that appears three to seven days after fever starts, beginning behind the ears and on the face and spreading down the body and then to the arms and legs.
If you have any of these symptoms stay home and call Health Link.
In Alberta, measles vaccine is offered, free of charge, through Alberta’s publicly funded immunization program. Children in Alberta typically receive their first dose of measles vaccine at 12 months of age, and their second dose at 18 months of age.
Health
U.S. tightens rules for dairy cows a day after bird flu virus fragments found in pasteurized milk samples – Toronto Star
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Infected cows were already prohibited from being transported out of state, but that was based on the physical characteristics of the milk, which looks curdled when a cow is infected, or a cow has decreased lactation or low appetite, both symptoms of infection.
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