Kk. Milner et al., ATTITUDES OF YOUNG-ADULTS TO PRENATAL SCREENING AND GENETIC CORRECTION FOR HUMAN ATTRIBUTES AND PSYCHIATRIC CONDITIONS, American journal of medical genetics, 76(2), 1998, pp. 111-119
With recent advances in DNA technology, questions have arisen as to ho
w this technology should be appropriately used, In this article, resul
ts obtained from a survey designed to elicit attitudes of college stud
ents to prenatal testing and gene therapy for human attributes and psy
chiatric conditions are reported, The eleven hypothetical disease phen
otypes included schizophrenia, alcoholism, tendency toward violent beh
avior, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression requiring
medical treatment, obesity, involvement in ''dangerous'' sports activi
ties, homosexuality, borderline normal IQ (80-100), proportional short
stature, and inability to detect perfect pitch, Most students support
ed prenatal genetic testing for psychiatric disorders and behavior tha
t might result in harm to others (i.e., tendency towards violent behav
ior) and found prenatal genetic testing for human attributes less desi
rable. However, the lack of unilateral agreement or disagreement towar
d any one condition or attribute suggests the potential difficulties a
head in the quest for guidelines for the application of new technologi
es available to manipulate the human genome. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.