Mischa Angrist and Brendan Maher point me to two interest personal genomics related stories. First, a follow up on inadvertent uncovering of incest story from last winter in GenomeWeb, Incidental Findings:
Recently, he and his colleagues encountered a case in which a married mother of three children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — the eldest of which she conceived in a previous union — opted to submit their genetic samples for screening. The researchers discovered a span of homozygosity that indicated the oldest child was the product of an incestuous conception between first-degree relatives. When they informed the mother of what they found, Beaudet says she vehemently denied such a relationship and demanded that the test be repeated. “The test was repeated and [the result] was the same,” he says. “And then she sort of broke down and said: ‘My husband will divorce me if he finds out about this.’ … There are just a lot of difficult things that come up.”
A few years ago professionals had discussions about whether they should even divulge this sort of information which might destabilize the family unit. In particular in relation to paternity. I think that’s a moot point, the horse …