Genetic Testing and Professional Responsibility: The Italian Experience

Responsibility means responding to the damaging consequences of technical work and in this binding perspective the general principles of guilt in genetic diagnostics and related activities are not different from any other medical performance. Performing a genetic test however, especially when it has predictive characteristics, offers absolutely peculiar technical deontological issues. It is not and should not be considered as a mere habitual laboratory test but as a complex set of interactions that presupposes adequate information as a valid consensus to formalize absolutely in written form.