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GENETICISTS WARN OF TOO MANY FETAL SCREENING TESTS

LONDON, May 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Medical geneticists are warning that too many women are having unnecessary fetal screening tests that are often intrusive and, even when they are not, result in the abortion of healthy babies. The conclusions were reached after a survey of the results of tens of thousands of cystic fibrosis tests occurring in the United States.

"The volume of tests has exploded, and front-line service providers are having some difficulty with the hard mutations that are difficult to interpret," says Michael Watson, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics. Watson told New Scientist magazine that he knows of "at least 150 prenatals that have been done that perhaps should not have been done".

Wayne Grody, at the University of California School of Medicine, says many clinics are diagnosing couples wrongly with a form of cystic fibrosis, leading many couples to opt for abortion, though he could not explain why the clinics would be doing so.

For coverage from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993675

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