in a person without signs of illness. At present risk variants have not been robustly established that would provide clinically useful individual predictive power and it may well be many years in the future before this is possible. Nonetheless we need to think through the issues in advance of the scientific and technical reality. It is highly desirable that the clinical usefulness of any genetic test is demonstrated before it is made widely available. “Direct to consumer” genetic tests of spurious clinical usefulness are already available commercially so there is an urgent need to develop frameworks and guidelines for best practice.
