Engineering ethics in Genetic Testing in Children Research Paper

Engineering ethics in Genetic Testing in Children - Research Paper Example Almost all infants born in the US will have their blood samples collected for the screening of a variety of hematologic, endocrine or metabolic conditions or their condition in relation to infectious conditions – during the week following their birth. These tests are administered under the oversight of the respective states, and the testing procedures were started after Guthrie’s call for the diagnosis of phenylketonuria in 1961 (Wilson and Jungner 473). Immediately after the enforcement of the policy, some groups were opposed to the recommendations, giving the reasons that the possibility of harm on some children and the lack of proper dietary intervention did not justify the administration of genetic testing (National Research Council 23). Later, in response to the expansion of public health screening, WHO (World Health Organization) called for the study that led to the 1968 recommendations by Wilson and Jungner (473), enumerating the conditions that met the criteria for mass screening. The policy recommendations remained in place for more than four decades, until the developments made in the field of medicine enabled some authorities to push for changes in the criteria used (Andermann et al. 317). However, irrespective of the changes that have been made, there is the general agreement that population-wide testing, the history of the subjects should be studied, the corrective procedures should be available, and cost-effective testing should be accessible (Institute of Medicine 57).