bio ethics

Today the Beagle welcomes Amy McGuire, Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Amy, a nationally-recognized expert in the legal and ethical issues associated with genomic medicine, joins Laura to discuss BabySeq and the high-risk, high-reward prospect of making genome sequencing of newborns routine. After a preliminary study many years in the making, Amy is here to assure us of one thing: “what we’re doing isn’t Gattaca.” Also, the take-home message: sequencing healthy babies does not seem, in this initial sample, to increase parental distress or interfere with parent-child bonding.