Alerting genetic relatives to a risk of serious inherited disease without a patient’s consent

Byard, Roger W; Cordner, Stephen M

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2011.tb03171.x

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To the Editor: Suthers and colleagues raise a number of significant ethical issues regarding patients’ right to privacy and the passing of genetic information to relatives.1 Although the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines relate specifically to private practice and living patients,2 similar dilemmas arise during medicolegal autopsies.

1 University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA.
2 Monash University, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: byard.roger@saugov.sa.gov.au

1. Suthers GK, McCusker EA, Wake SA. Alerting genetic relatives to a risk of serious inherited disease without a patient’s consent [editorial]. Med J Aust 2011; 194: 385-386. <MJA full text>
2. National Health and Medical Research Council. Use and disclosure of genetic information to a patient’s genetic relatives under section 95AA of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). Guidelines for health practitioners in the private sector. Canberra: NHMRC, 2009. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/e96syn.htm (accessed May 2011).
3. Ely SF, Gill JR. Fatal pulmonary thromboembolism and hereditary thrombophilias. J Forensic Sci 2005; 50: 411-418.
4. Byard RW. The potential significance of occult cardiac rhabdomyomas at autopsy in traumatic death. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 2011 Jan 9 [Epub ahead of print].

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