How Early Is Too Early To Find Out You’ve Got An Incurable Disease?
Last week, a study in the scientific journal Nature Medicine that opened a door to early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease hinted that Cassandra’s regret might soon become an uncomfortably familiar phenomenon. Furthermore, testing of general populations might mean that people who actually end up never contracting a particular disease are identified as high risk. “In medicine, there is a distinction between early testing for diseases where there is treatment or prevention, and those where there is not,” says Julian Savulescu, who researches various issues around medicine, ethics and responsibility at Oxford University.
Source: www.wired.co.uk