Biomedical Ethics | Genetic Testing Threatens Society

Researchers have labeled many human diseases and disorders as genetic in origin, with specific genes responsible for each disease. In the following viewpoint, Ruth Hubbard and Elijah Ward maintain that such conclusions divert attention from social and economic factors that contribute to the disease. Furthermore, they contend, testing to detect the genes that are supposedly responsible for disease will lead to eugenics as people try to replace the “defective” gene with a “normal” gene. Hubbard, a professor of biology emerita at Harvard University and a director of the Council for...

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