After the Revolution? Ethical and Social Challenges in ‘Personalized Genomic Medicine‘

Abstract

Personalized genomic medicine (PGM) is a goal that currently unites a wide array of biomedical initiatives, and is promoted as a ‘new paradigm for healthcare‘ by its champions. Its promissory virtues include individualized diagnosis and risk prediction, more effective prevention and health promotion, and patient empowerment. Beyond overcoming scientific and technological hurdles to realizing PGM, proponents may interpret and rank these promises differently, which carries ethical and social implications for the realization of PGM as an approach to healthcare. We examine competing visions of PGM‘s virtues and the directions in which they could take the field, in order to anticipate policy choices that may lie ahead for researchers, healthcare providers and the public.

KEYWORDS::

• empowerment
• participatory
• personalization
• prediction
• prevention
• social worlds
• stakeholders

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the other members of our research team for their integral contributions to our larger project, ‘Anticipating Personalized Genomic Medicine‘: M Flatt, M Lambrix, T Ottusch and R Ponsaran, and the anonymous reviewers of Personalized Medicine for their helpful comments.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Support for the preparation of this article was provided by the US National Human Genome Research Institute, Grant NIH R01 HG005277. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter discussed in the manuscript.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

Financial & competing interests disclosure Support for the preparation of this article was provided by the US National Human Genome Research Institute, Grant NIH R01 HG005277. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter discussed in the manuscript. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.