patient autonomy and allowing
access to personalised medicine.
In previous years, patients have
always had the right to retain information about their health and wellbeing from both insurance companies and the government, yet do
these personal rights also apply to
genetic makeup? What uses are
acceptable for genetic information,
and if a person has this information
collected for use in risk profiling or
diagnosis, should that then automatically commit them to allowing
their data to be used for diagnosing and profiling others? As people
have a right to refuse treatment
and have personal privacy when it
comes to diagnostics, how will this
work when relatives also potentially encounter the same issues?
Cost is also a massive issue in personalised medicine -- as 46 million
people are without health insurance, how will companies ensure
everyone receives personalised
medicine? And will the benefits of
cost cuts to everyday NHS be spent
on attempting to achieve personalised medicine globally? These
outline the fundamental issues in
the personalised medicine scheme
in which many scientists and legal
advisors have worked throughout
the years to address and overcome,
and the article below explains how
they have succeeded.
An article named ‘Personalized
Medicine: Ethnical, Legal and
Regulatory Issues’ explains that
“although tests and companion
diagnostics exist to improve prescribing and care outcomes, physicians typically do not have the
detailed analyses of clinical information needed to select optimal
drug treatments and dosages on the
basis of a patient’s unique genetic
p