ABSTRACT
The issue of how individual patients and their doctors should act in relation to the knowledge that the patient has a genetic condition—specifically, whether the patient and/or the doctor should or must inform relevant members of the patient's family—is a looming area of medicolegal controversy. Over the last fifteen years or so, the issue of confidentiality versus disclosure has been particularly controversial in relation to HIV/AIDS patients. Medical information about genetic disease gives rise to special problems with regard to blood relatives. Because genetic disease is transmitted only by way of procreation, information about genetic disease is unique in that there is a propensity for the condition to be shared by members of a family who are biologically related. Thus, genetic information about an individual may reveal information about relatives of that individual which is 'specific (that the person has or will develop a genetic disease); or predictive (that the person has an unspecified risk of developing the disease)'.
