Do I need to know if I'm at risk for an incurable disease?

Francis Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Institutes of Health describes what to consider with DNA testing.

Transcript

00:00

I think people ought to have the ability to make that decision for themselves.

00:06

And there are people who want to know and if they have the resources, or if the medical care system is structured to allow that, they

00:13

should be given that information to the extent that they want it. If there are people who don't want to know their Alzheimer's risk, well, they

00:19

should not be forced to look at it. Until such time as we have an intervention that actually can reduce your risk, it's entirely reasonable to say,

00:27

I don't want to know. I happen to know because I had my own DNA tested and I decided that would be information I'd

00:34

like to have just for planning. And so I pushed that button and said, yes, I'll look at that one and I'm glad I did.

00:41

Happily it turned out well, but even if it hadn't turned out well, I think for me that was the kind of information that I would find useful.

00:47

But that's not true for everybody and we should honor that. We should celebrate that. We shouldn't say there's a right answer and a wrong answer.