[Beyond the diagnosis of a genetic disease, the question of informing the relatives]

Abstract

The examination of a person's genetic characteristics is not a classic diagnostic. It concerns the gene pool of an entire family. It is valid in the present and may affect some part of the future. The diseases that it reveals, sometime very serious ones, may or may not be treated. But genetic advice allows sometimes to preventing some of these diseases. The 2004 Bioethics Law makes the provision that in case a serious genetic anomaly is diagnosed during the examination of a person's genetic characteristics, the medical doctor informs the person or its legal representative of the risks that his silence could cause to the potentially concerned family members as long as prevention measures or care can be offered to them. For these reasons, besides the specificity of the diagnostic for the person directly concerned, there is also the question of the right of other people, like family members, to be informed of the diagnostic. As such, there is an ethical conflict between medical confidentiality owed to each patient and the duty of information. The pharmacist must know the medical confidentiality rules that frame this information. He must also know the different patient attitudes and must be able to encourage him to inform his family because the future if not the life of others may depend on this information.