ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the interrelated ethical issues that affect sports medicine to professional athletes. It explores the critical questions regarding the potential of genetic testing in sports medicine without rejecting it tout court. The chapter explains the economic and power asymmetry between professional sports franchises and individual professional athletes, it argues that the voluntary consenting to genetic testing may be undermined and that duress or coercion used to secure the data that can be acquired through genetic testing. If genetic testing is to develop in sports medicine, it highlights the need for acceptable and available systems for genetic counselling before and after testing. Predictive genetic testing as part of pre-employment medical examinations is forbidden whenever it does not serve the individual's health-related interests. This chapter explains that if genetic testing is carried out for enhancement purposes it may have the unintended, but desirable, consequence of highlighting harmful diseases or conditions that may be exacerbated by high-level athletic activity.
