Gene screening in itself is a remarkable revolution in the medical world; allowing doctors to screen individuals for any genetic diseases they may be carrying or may develop in their later life for example, cancer. However, genetic screening has enough negatives to question whether the impact of it would be progressive or undesirable. Gene Screening can benefit people by preventing years of potential misdiagnosis and visits to different specialist. If the screening comes out as positive and the individual does have a mutated gene a diagnostic test can be done and prevention or treatment can be started at an earlier stage. A genetic screening will also allow a couple to see whether their children will be more likely to inherit the mutated gene increasing the risk of their offspring’s also obtaining a hereditary cancer. This way they will be able to make an informed decision whether to have children or not. Yet, this is also a disadvantage as it goes against moral ethics as just because there is a high chance of a child developing cancer does not mean they should not be born as by the time the cancer does develop, treatments may have become more advanced and a cure may be available. …show more content…
At the same time if a patient is told to have a high risk of cancer and undergoes treatment but is found to not have the mutated chromosome (false positive) then the treatment itself is extremely dangerous and may lead to further complications in the individual’s health. Thus for gene screening to be useful in treating possible cancer patients it has to be highly sensitive at being able to pick up true positive’s from the false but at the same time be extremely specific at excluding true negatives from the false as