ATTITUDES OF YOUNG-ADULTS TO PRENATAL SCREENING AND GENETIC CORRECTION FOR HUMAN ATTRIBUTES AND PSYCHIATRIC CONDITIONS

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.