Genetic Testing: Is It Better Not To Know?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
A genetic counselor called to tell her that she had a rare genetic mutation which could lead to a lethal form of stomach cancer.
The only way to prevent that cancer was to get her stomach surgically removed.
While she's now grateful for the information that genetic testing gave her, Woodruff's story raises questions about what kind of information patients should have and how they can use it.
Professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, Nita Farahany and professor of law and biosciences at Stanford University, Hank Greely discuss the implications of growing access to genetic testing and how to weigh health decisions.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you could glimpse the future and learn you were going to get sick, that you could |
| 0:06.3 | die from an illness, would you want to know? |
| 0:09.3 | That became a real choice for Sasha Woodruff. |
| 0:11.8 | I think I didn't want to know any of this. |
| 0:14.7 | You see Woodruff's family has a relentless history of cancer. |
| 0:18.8 | So both of my maternal grandparents died of cancer. |
| 0:22.5 | My great grandmother had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. |
| 0:26.6 | My mom had breast cancer when I was in elementary school. |
| 0:31.6 | So it felt like it was all around me. |
| 0:34.2 | So she got genetic tests twice for two different mutations that were common in her family. |
| 0:40.0 | One can lead to breast cancer and another from mutation that can cause colorectal cancer. |
| 0:45.6 | Both tests came back negative. |
| 0:47.4 | It was this really joyous moment because I thought, oh my god, I don't have to worry about |
| 0:52.4 | this cancer right, you know, anymore. |
| 0:55.9 | And then that was that. |
| 0:58.0 | But then years later, Woodruff was at work and she got a phone call from a number she didn't |
| 1:03.8 | recognize. |
| 1:04.8 | He said, I'm Dr. Richard Frieder. |
| 1:06.3 | I'm the medical director and telogen cancer genetics. |
| 1:10.0 | And I have some new information for you. |
| 1:11.7 | I have this report. |
| 1:13.0 | He told her that thanks to new research, scientists could now tell she did have a different genetic |
... |
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