Genetic Risk: The New Frontier for the Duty to Warn
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2001
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.449
Abstract
Mental health professionals usually think of the “duty to warn” in the context of mental illness. However, two state appellate courts have endorsed a duty to warn when children of a patient may be at risk genetically for acquiring the disease of their parents. In these cases, the courts held that a physician's legal obligations extended beyond his or her patient to the patient's children. This article discusses these cases, as well as issues regarding implementation of such a duty and the implications for the physician–patient relationship in a health care environment that will be dominated increasingly by genetics issues. The article concludes that it is premature to apply a duty to warn to the treatment of mental illness and to concerns regarding future criminal behavior.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, v. 19, issue 3, p. 405-421
Scholar Commons Citation
Petrila, John, "Genetic Risk: The New Frontier for the Duty to Warn" (2001). Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications. 156.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/mhlp_facpub/156
