UK Health Secretary Matthew Hancock announced plans by the country's National Health Service to begin sequencing (reading) the DNA of every child born in Foggy Albion. The pilot project will cover 20 thousand children. However, not all experts support this idea and do not believe that there is a real need for such screening.
To be clear, many babies today are already being tested for certain health conditions shortly after birth. However, complete DNA sequencing is unlikely to become part of routine screening.
Today, babies born in the UK are being tested for nine genetic diseases. They have been chosen by the specialists because, knowing they are present, they can prevent their worst forms with preventive treatment.
We are talking, for example, about phenylketonuria - a hereditary disease associated with a violation of the metabolism of amino acids, mainly phenylalanine. This ailment can cause brain damage, but it can be avoided with a low-protein diet.
Unfortunately, most genetic diseases are not so simple, and for many there is still no adequate treatment. We can say that specialists are just beginning to study the human genome, and some information obtained during the "reading" of DNA can lead to difficult dilemmas, writes The New Scientist.
An example is the genetic disease of Huntington. It makes itself felt at the age of 30-50 years, leads to severe disability and subsequent early death. There is no cure for this condition.
Relatives of patients with Huntington's disease can spend years deciding for themselves whether they want to be tested for the presence of certain problems or not. And, by the way, many prefer not to do this (so as not to live in constant fear later).
If we talk about children who could potentially inherit Huntington's disease, then if parents ask doctors to check their child, they are usually refused (according to international recommendations in this regard). The decision to find out if a person has the gene responsible for this ailment is a personal choice that should be made to a person after he turns 18.
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Of course, Huntington's disease is rare, but similar dilemmas can arise for more common conditions. Certain genes are known to make people more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and some types of cancer. However, there is currently little that can be done to avoid dementia (acquired dementia).
Some people would prefer not to know about these risks before the need to fight the disease comes (and it may not come, since a genetic test in most cases only determines the likelihood of developing a particular condition).
It also wouldn't make sense to sequence the genomes of babies at birth and then wait until they come of age to provide them with the results.
And, although DNA sequencing will inevitably become a cheaper and more advanced method of examination in the coming years, it would be more reasonable to offer it to every adult, many experts believe.
However, there is a small group of children for whom genome sequencing can bring real benefits: those who have rare diseases undiagnosed by other methods.
So, in one of the studies, DNA sequencing led to the diagnosis in a fifth of children in intensive care, and this figure is likely to increase over time. According to experts, in these cases, parents can consent to testing their babies, since in this case, DNA sequencing is not done out of idle curiosity.
To date, there are no other details about UK plans for this program. Meanwhile, experts recognize that DNA sequencing of all babies is a huge step that will require public consultation on ethical and practical issues.
Evgeniya Efimova
