Parental Access to Children's Raw Genomic Data in Canada: Legal Rights and Professional Responsibility.
| Title: | Parental Access to Children's Raw Genomic Data in Canada: Legal Rights and Professional Responsibility. |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Beauvais MJS; Centre of Genomics and Policy, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.; Thorogood AM; ELIXIR-LU, Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, University of Luxembourg, Belvaux, Luxembourg.; Szego MJ; Centre for Clinical Ethics, Unity Health, Toronto, ON, Canada.; Departments of Family and Community Medicine and Molecular Genetics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.; Sénécal K; Independent Researcher, Montreal, QC, Canada.; Zawati MH; Centre of Genomics and Policy, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.; Knoppers BM; Centre of Genomics and Policy, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. |
| Source: | Frontiers in genetics [Front Genet] 2021 Mar 31; Vol. 12, pp. 535340. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Mar 31 (Print Publication: 2021). |
| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Journal Info: | Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation Country of Publication: Switzerland NLM ID: 101560621 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 1664-8021 (Print) Linking ISSN: 16648021 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Front Genet Subsets: PubMed not MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Original Publication: Lausanne : Frontiers Research Foundation. |
| Abstract: | Children with rare and common diseases now undergo whole genome sequencing (WGS) in clinical and research contexts. Parents sometimes request access to their child's raw genomic data, to pursue their own analyses or for onward sharing with health professionals and researchers. These requests raise legal, ethical, and practical issues for professionals and parents alike. The advent of widespread WGS in pediatrics occurs in a context where privacy and data protection law remains focused on giving individuals control-oriented rights with respect to their personal information. Acting in their child's stead and in their best interests, parents are generally the ones who will be exercising these informational rights on behalf of the child. In this paper, we map the contours of parental authority to access their child's raw genomic data. We consider three use cases: hospital-based researchers, healthcare professionals acting in a clinical-diagnostic capacity, and "pure" academic researchers at a public institution. Our research seeks to answer two principal questions: Do parents have a right of access to their child's raw WGS data? If so, what are the limits of this right? Primarily focused on the laws of Ontario, Canada's most populous province, with a secondary focus on Canada's three other most populous provinces (Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta) and the European Union, our principal findings include (1) parents have a general right of access to information about their children, but that the access right is more capacious in the clinical context than in the research context; (2) the right of access extends to personal data in raw form; (3) a consideration of the best interests of the child may materially limit the legal rights of parents to access data about their child; (4) the ability to exercise rights of access are transferred from parents to children when they gain decision-making capacity in both the clinical and research contexts, but with more nuance in the former. With these findings in mind, we argue that professional guidelines, which are concerned with obligations to interpret and return results, may assist in furthering a child's best interests in the context of legal access rights. We conclude by crafting recommendations for healthcare professionals in the clinical and research contexts when faced with a parental request for a child's raw genomic data.; (Copyright © 2021 Beauvais, Thorogood, Szego, Sénécal, Zawati and Knoppers.) |
| Competing Interests: | The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. |
| Comments: | Erratum in: Front Genet. 2021 Jul 02;12:725850. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.725850.. (PMID: 34276804) |
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| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: consent; ethics; individual access; pediatrics; personal genomics; privacy; whole genome sequencing |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20210419 Latest Revision: 20210720 |
| Update Code: | 20260130 |
| PubMed Central ID: | PMC8044527 |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fgene.2021.535340 |
| PMID: | 33868358 |
| Database: | MEDLINE |
Journal Article