If You Were Rachel 's Healthcare Provider

   The Human Genome Project is the largest scientific endeavor undertaken since the Manhattan Project, and, as with the Manhattan Project, the completion of the Human Genome Project has brought to surface many moral and ethical issues concerning the use of the knowledge gained from the project. Although genetic tests for certain diseases have been available for 15 years (Ridley, 1999), the completion of the Human Genome Project will certainly lead to an exponential increase in the number of genetic tests available. Therefore, before genetic testing becomes a routine part of a visit to a doctor's office, the two main questions at the heart of the controversy surrounding genetic testing must be

It is patients’ right to opt for genetic testing on their own DNA, although they are accepting a great risk by doing so.

In chapter four of her book Genetic Dilemmas, Dena Davis asserts that it is unethical for parents to subject their children to genetic testing for the markers of adult-onset genetic diseases because it places an unfair constraint on a child’s right to an open future. It both removes the child’s ability to choose whether to be tested as an adult and has the potential to negatively alter the overall trajectory of their lives. While the current consensus amongst medical professionals is that such testing should be prohibited (Davis, _____), many concerned parents correctly point out that discouraging such testing creates a conflict of interests between the “beneficence model of patient care and the rights of parents to their own autonomy”

The inclusion of genetic testing into Electronic Health Records impacts the overall healthcare of patient’s because it informs the physicians and other medical professionals the selection of effective treatment or preventive action. A manager’s responsibilities are to implement policies to protect the confidentiality, privacy, and security of genetic tests results and information of patient’s. Policies contributing to potential discrimination acts are also advised because genetic/genomic testing reveals a patient’s physical characteristics.

However, confidentiality rights also protect the patient's health information and right to privacy. Another issue that arises concerns the confidentiality of HD diagnoses with relation to insurance companies. Many patients fear that they will be denied or will no longer be able to afford insurance coverage if the insurance company learns that they will one day have HD (Ethical issues of genetic diagnosis, 2007). Insurance companies may also begin to mandate that genetically-related individuals undergo predictive genetic testing for HD if one family member develops the disease (Ethical issues of genetic diagnosis, 2007).

Cancer is a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells. The DNA sequence in cells can be changed as a result of copying errors during replication. If these changes whatever their cause are left uncorrected, both growing and non-growing somatic cells might gain many mutations that they could no longer function. The relevance of DNA damage and repair to the generation of cancer was obvious when it was recognized that everything that causes cancer also cause a change in the DNA sequence. Tumor suppressor genes are protective genes and normally they limit cell growth by monitoring the speed of cell division, repair mismatched DNA and control when a cell dies. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated cells grow

When people experience genetic tests, privacy incorporates the privilege to make an educated, free choice about whether others may know points of interest of their genome, e.g., insurance, businesses, instructive foundations, spouses and other relatives, scientists, and social agencies. This incorporates a privilege to settle on certain conceptive decisions, for example, regardless of whether to utilize genetic testing. It likewise incorporates a privilege to reject treatment. A couple of court choices discover security for such data under the established precept of security, yet more ordinarily, security assurance against revelation of individual data is found under customary law tort principle. (7) Moreover, there is a federal privacy act, (8) and in addition state statutes ensuring

The body is made up of hundreds of millions of living cells. Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly fashion. During the early years of a person’s life, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries. Cancer begins when cells in a part of the body start to grow out of control. There are many kinds of cancer, but they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cell (American Cancer Society, 2010).

Genetic information can be identified at any point throughout a person’s lifespan from pre-conception until after death. In addition to heritable, biological information, family history, genetic test results, and medical records are also sources of genetic information” (Jenkins & Lea, 2005). We are put in a position to gather and retain information that could be utilized for a better future, but is confidentiality involved for the sake of profiting? Ask yourself, who should have access to genetic information? Who owns and controls it? How can families resolve conflicts when some members want to be tested for a genetic disorder and others do not?

Cancer is a disease that can change the life of a person no matter their age or nationality. Cancer can range from being life threatening to a low risk of death. Cancer cells are cells that do not follow the regular cell growth and division pattern. They go through cell division and produce rapidly. Cancer cells differ from regulating cells in the body because normal cells eventually die. Cancer cells, on the other hand, do not die when they should causing it to be very hard to cure cancer in your body.

genetic testing, everything has changed. She notes that clinicians now have the ability to diagnose, treat, and monitor a patient’s illnesses or disease progression in an entirely different manner. This is a far cry from the old medical model of responding to a disease (or defect) only after it appears, and then prescribing the recommended medication or intervention. These genetic medical advances sound miraculous and promising, but the ability to test, screen and provide early intervention does not come without many major ethical dilemmas.

A normal cell replicates and divides into two cells which in turn divide into four daughter cells and so on by DNA replication in mitosis. As the cell grows old, it dies because of the programmed cell death known as apoptosis. The dead cells are then replaced with new cells. However when the DNA of the cell is damaged, for example when there is a genetic change such as DNA mutation or defective protein synthesis, the cell becomes abnormal. It begins to divide uncontrollably and forms a growth (cancerous tumour), in contrast to the normal cell in which

Cancer occurrs by the production of multiple mutations in a single cell that causes it to proliferate out of control. Cancer cells often different from their normal neighbors by a host of specific phenotypic changes, such as rapid division rate, invasion of new cellular territories, high metabolic rate, and altered shape. Some of those mutations may be transmitted from the parents through the germ line. Others arise de novo in the somatic cell lineage of a particular cell. Cancer-promoting mutations can be identified in a variety of ways. They can be cloned and studied to learn how they can be controlled.

It is the consensus that cancer is a form of disease that portrays itself in various ways. Cancer is the abnormal multiplication of the cell. Interestingly, Hosick, Rizzo, Campanella and Alder (2017) have argued that cancer is inappropriate and uncontrollable cell growth within one of the specialized tissues of the body, threatening normal cell and organ function and in serious cases travelling via the bloodstream to other areas of the body. This irregular cell growth can start anywhere in the body for example; in the blood, lungs, breast or the pancreas.

Cancer, also known as malignant neoplasm, the hallmark characteristic involves uncontrolled proliferation of cells. Under normal conditions cell grow, divide and die, but in cancer cells the defect takes place at the gene level leading to the formation of an abnormal DNA. As genes are the basic control machines of the cell, alteration of any kind may bring devastating consequences, or malignancy. Moreover, in normal cells damage of any kind is taken care by the repair system but in cancer cells, the repair function is altered, hence damaged DNA is not repaired, occurs, cells divide continuously without displaying senescence, generating a series of abnormal cells (Alberts, 2007).