Questioning the consensus: Managing carrier status results generated by newborn screening

F.A. Miller, J.S. Robert and R.Z. Hayeems

American Journal of Public Health, 2009, vol. 99, issue 2, 210-215

Abstract: An apparent consensus governs the management of carrier status information generated incidentally through newborn screening: results cannot be withheld from parents. This normative stance encodes the focus on autonomy and distaste for paternalism that characterize the principles of clinical bioethics. However, newborn screening is a classic public health intervention in which paternalism may trump autonomy and through which parents are - in effect - required to receive carrier information. In truth, the disposition of carrier results generates competing moral infringements: to withhold information or require its possession. Resolving this dilemma demands consideration of a distinctive body of public health ethics to highlight the moral imperatives associated with the exercise of collective authority in the pursuit of public health benefits.

Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.136614_6

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.136614

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