title: Genetic risk: the new frontier for the duty to warn.
abstract: Mental health professionals usually think of the "duty to warn" in the context of mental illness. However, two state appellate courts have endorsed a duty to warn when children of a patient may be at risk genetically for acquiring the disease of their parents. In these cases, the courts held that a physician's legal obligations extended beyond his or her patient to the patient's children. This article discusses these cases, as well as issues regarding implementation of such a duty and the implications for the physician-patient relationship in a health care environment that will be dominated increasingly by genetics issues. The article concludes that it is premature to apply a duty to warn to the treatment of mental illness and to concerns regarding future criminal behavior.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mental Health Law and Policy, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33617, USA. petrila@mirage.fmhi.usf.edu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petrila
mesh_terms: D003415:Crime; D017007:Duty to Warn / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005431:Florida; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005824:Genetics, Behavioral; D006801:Humans; D009515:New Jersey; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations