Genetic screening.

The recent proliferation of genetic knowledge has been accompanied by speculation about 
its uses in the pursuit of both medical and social goals, 
as well as by fear and concern about possible misuses. These 
speculations have appeared in the proceedings of numerous symposia and in 
many books and papers. A review of this literature reveals that 
the nonmedical participants in this debate were preoccupied with those aims 
of genetics that might benefit (or threaten) society, while the physicians 
were concerned with the accomplishment of standard medical missions in which 
social aims figure only incidentally. These missions are diagnosis, management, and 
prevention of disease. The specific uses of genetic knowledge most frequently 
mentioned were advances in the taxonomy of disease that lead to 
improvements in diagnosis and treatment of individual patients and their relatives, 
genetic counseling, and genetic screening. The latter two, particularly screening, are 
preventive and represent the interface between medical genetics, especially population genetics, 
and society. This review focuses on developments in genetic screening, defined 
as the search in a population, generally for medical reasons, for 
individuals possessing particular genotypes. 