From Michael Leonard
You report the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues as concluding: “policies should protect individual privacy by prohibiting unauthorized whole genome sequencing without the consent of the individual from whom the sample came” (20 October, p 5). What, given a lawyerly reading of this, would stop sequencing of, say, 80 per cent of a genome without consent, or even just the key regions linked to known genetic disorders? Any future policies need to be worded very carefully to avoid loopholes being exploited.
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, UK
