Woman to sue doctors after inheriting fatal illness in ground breaking case

 

The woman discovered after giving birth that her father carried the gene for Huntington's disease, a degenerative, incurable brain condition. Later she found out she had inherited the gene and that her own daughter, now eight, has a 50% chance of gaining the disease.

 

It is the first case in English law to deal with a relative's claim over issues of genetic responsibility. The woman who cannot be named for legal reasons, says she would have had an abortion had she known about her father's condition and is suing the doctors who failed to tell her about the risks she and her child faced. 

 

"This could really change the way we do medicine, because it is about the duty that doctors have to share genetic test results with relatives and whether the duty exists in law," said Anna Middleton, head of society and ethics research at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge.

 

Experts say that as more is discovered about the genetic components of medical conditions (including cancer and dementia) healthcare professionals will come under increasing pressure to consider not only their patients' needs but also those of relatives. The case raises questions over how much effort clinicians need to put into tracing relatives and whether they will be sued if their attempts do not go far enough.

 

In effect, lawyers say the definition of a patient is facing change. In future, a patient may be not just the person who provided a genetic sample but may be defined as also those affected by that genetic sample.

 

However, the very fact that the court of appeal has decided this issue might be enshrined in law indicates that some changes in medical practice are now inevitable. 

 

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