ABSTRACT
This chapter describes genetic risks, review the basic tenets of genetic counseling, and evaluates struggle with ethical issues faced in assembling a presymptomatic testing program for Huntington disease. It presents a case study that illustrates some ethical conflicts and policy challenges. In most cases individuals are fortunate enough to have children with a partner whose abnormal recessive genes are different from their own. However, some people are not so fortunate. Thousands of children are born each year with a genetic birth defect or disorder because their parents are both carriers of a recessive disease. Dr. Sheldon Reed, Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, coined the term “genetic counseling” in 1947. In his book, he describes genetic counseling as being “a most important practical application of the findings of the science of human genetics. The elements of genetic counseling were defined in a 1975 report to the American Society of Human Genetics by an Ad Hoc Committee on Genetic Counseling.
