November 9, 2016 – Precision Medicine Forethought

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Anchor lead:  What are some of the ethical issues surrounding precision medicine? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Precision medicine holds a lot of promise, allowing someone’s own genetic makeup to be utilized in determining what diseases they might develop, and what treatments or interventions are likely to work best. Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins, says Hopkins is at the cutting edge not just of the technologies supporting this effort, but also the ethics.

Kahn: There are all these kinds of I think predictive aspects of precision medicine that need to be worked out and worked through. We’re at a frontier in the application of this information.  Trying to be prepared for all of the issues that will arise as the precision medicine initiative takes off will only help us apply that information in a way that will work better and make people feel more confident about participating.  We don’t want people to think I don’t want to share my data because I don’t think it will be properly safeguarded.  :29

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.