3 ms·

While it's undoubtedly unpleasant to hear that you're more likely to get cancer than most people, that information could save your life. I'm not sure that I see

While it's undoubtedly unpleasant to hear that you're more likely to get cancer than most people, that information could save your life. I'm not sure that I see a moral quandary here.

aggronn 14y ago
In the off chance that it doesn't save their life, theres a great concern that it would significantly decrease her quality of life preceding a diagnosis. not just psychologically--theres insurance to worry about here too.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Baseline chance of cancer is what, half? Finding out you're likely to get a specific kind should barely affect quality of life. It'll just tell you where to scan.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
JunkDNA 14y ago
It's about what people choose to know. There are many people who don't want to know about things they can't always do something about. Many people would rather live a carefree life than know they can get a particular disease. This is a point of view I have trouble wrapping my head around personally, but it can't just be discounted. My example is also a little more clear cut than most. There are many cases where it's not so definitive. Some of the risk calculations result in increases over the baseline for the population of 10%. What does that even mean? It's all pretty poorly understood. Hence there is a real desire to only report back the really strong data. But that unfortunately results in eliminating useful, but highly speculative data.