title: Questioning the consensus: managing carrier status results generated by newborn screening.
abstract: An apparent consensus governs the management of carrier status information generated incidentally through newborn screening: results cannot be withheld from parents. This normative stance encodes the focus on autonomy and distaste for paternalism that characterize the principles of clinical bioethics. However, newborn screening is a classic public health intervention in which paternalism may trump autonomy and through which parents are-in effect-required to receive carrier information. In truth, the disposition of carrier results generates competing moral infringements: to withhold information or require its possession. Resolving this dilemma demands consideration of a distinctive body of public health ethics to highlight the moral imperatives associated with the exercise of collective authority in the pursuit of public health benefits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. fiona.miller@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Fiona Alice
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Jason Scott
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Robert
authors.forename: Robin Z
authors.initials: RZ
authors.lastname: Hayeems
mesh_terms: D032921:Consensus; D030881:Disclosure / Q000941:ethics*; D005820:Genetic Testing; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015997:Neonatal Screening; D011634:Public Health / Q000941:ethics