One of the major bioethical debates in clinical genetics and genomics research is the issue of what to do with incidental or secondary findings (IFs) unrelated to the original clinical or research question. Every genome contains thousands of rare variants, including a surprising number of loss of function variants, as well as hundreds of variants associated with common disease and dozens linked with recessive conditions. As whole genome or exome sequencing is used more routinely in non-anonymised cohorts – such as the 100,000 patient genomes to be sequenced by the UK NHS – these variants will be uncovered and linked to an increasing number of individuals. What should we do with them?
Robert Green of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who co-chairs the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) working group on secondary findings, was quoted in a Nature blog last year saying, “we don’t think it’s going to be a sustainable strategy for the evolving practice of genomic medicine to ignore secondary findings of medical importance”. But just saying it doesn’t make it so. There are still numerous questions that need to be addressed – you can be part of the debate by participating in the Sanger Institute’s Genomethics survey.
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