From Data-Driven Medicine

Ethical Challenges Associated with Pathogen and Host Genetics in Infectious Disease

Richard and Chris wrote this piece for The New Bioethics

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Project: Data-Driven MedicineType: Journal ArticlesContributors: Christine PatchRichard MilneKeywords: Big DataCovid-19

Ethical Challenges Associated with Pathogen and Host Genetics in Infectious Disease

 

16th August 2022

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the potential of genomic technologies for the detection and surveillance of infectious diseases. Pathogen genomics is likely to play a major role in the future of research and clinical implementation of genomic technologies. However, unlike human genetics, the specific ethical and social challenges associated with the implementation of infectious disease genomics has received comparatively little attention. In this paper, we contribute to this literature, focusing on the potential consequences for individuals and communities of the use of these technologies. We concentrate on areas of challenges related to privacy, stigma, discrimination and the return of results in the cases of the surveillance of known pathogens, metagenomics and host genomics.

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Citation:

Milne, R. and Patch, C. (2022) “Ethical challenges associated with pathogen and host genetics in infectious disease” The New Bioethics

Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/20502877.2022.2109697