open access: European Journal of Human Genetics - Crossing the boundary between research and health care: P3G policy statement on return of results from population studies

European Journal of Human Genetics - Crossing the boundary between research and health care: P3G policy statement on return of results from population studies

 Altruistic offer or return?

In the past, the default position for research projects was not to return any individual results to participants. Innovative research findings need other studies to confirm their validity. The research laboratories usually do not have the quality assessment required in health care. Also, the funding provided for research studies is often limited, so that recall of participants for individual genetic counseling may not be possible within the research budget.

In the age of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and whole-genome sequencing, however, it is more than conceivable that a cancer predisposition is recognized when performing whole-genome analyses in a research setting.^4......