July 31, 2019

Should Soldiers Take a Genetic Test for Vulnerability to PTSD?

Based on evidence that vulnerability to post traumatic stress disorder is partly genetic, some researchers say that soldiers should be offered a genetic test before they deploy in order to help guide PTSD management. The test identifies genetic determinants of low levels of dopamine, a brain chemical. But others raise scientific and ethical concerns. For one thing, the connection between low dopamine and PTSD has not been established. In addition, a critical financial conflict of interest with the primary researcher who recommends this genetic testing was not disclosed. This debate is one of many developments at the intersection of genetics and the brain covered in the current issue of Braingenethics, a newsletter produced by a collaborative project of The Hastings Center and Columbia University Medical Center. Read the issue and subscribe here.

In the Media: Hastings' Michael Gusmano on Immigrant Health and Latest Legal Challenge to the Affordable Care Act

In an interview with The Nation, Michael Gusmano, a Hastings Center research scholar and associate professor of health policy at Rutgers, said that when he started looking at access to care for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. he found the situation for those with kidney disease to be “the most dire.” Kidney doctors are especially troubled by the status quo, he said, “because they’re not able to treat [undocumented] patients the way they treat their other patients. They feel as if they’re torturing people.” Read the article in The Nation. Gusmano codirects The Hastings Center’s Undocumented Patients project.

In an interview with ABC News, Gusmano commented on the most recent legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act. “I just think it’s going to be an interesting test of the extent to which the federal judiciary is going to uphold precedent and respect the Constitution,” Gusmano said. Read the ABC News article.

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