Responsibility in the age of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and epigenetics

M’hamdi, Hafez Ismaili; Beaufort, Inez de; Jack, Brian; Steegers, Eric A.P.

doi:10.1017/s2040174417000654

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Cautionary analyses have arisen regarding the focus of many epigenetic studies on parental duties toward the future epigenetic health of their child at an individual level. Most notably, authors criticize epigenetics for its potential to place additional blame on mothers who adopt specific behaviors during pregnancy or as caregivers (Hens, 2017; Kenney and Muller, 2017; Richardson, 2015), encouraging a new sense of maternal ‘hyper-responsibility’ (Lafaye, 2014; M’hamdi et al, 2018; Warin et al, 2015).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

2019

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Epigenetics, defined as ‘the study of mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequence’, has emerged as a promissory yet controversial field of scientific inquiry over the past decade. Scholars from many disciplines have formulated both optimistic and cautionary claims regarding its potential normative implications. This article provides a comprehensive review of the nascent literature at the crossroads of epigenetics, ethics, law and society. It describes nine emerging areas of discussion, relating to (1) the impact of epigenetics on the nature versus nurture dualism, (2) the potential resulting biologization of the social, (3) the meaning of epigenetics for public health, its potential influence on (4) reproduction and parenting, (5) political theory and (6) legal proceedings, and concerns regarding (7) stigmatization and discrimination, (8) privacy protection and (9) knowledge translation. While there is some degree of similarity between the nature and content of these areas and the abundant literature on ethical, legal and social issues in genetics, the potential implications of epigenetics ought not be conflated with the latter. Critical studies on epigenetics are emerging within a separate space of bioethical and biopolitical investigations and claims, with scholars from various epistemological standpoints utilizing distinct yet complementary analytical approaches.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

2019

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“…These examples illustrate that prevention efforts should consider the family at individual, social, and public levels. 29 In addition, presenting interdisciplinary findings from data with family implications is important. Such data are currently limited, but some sources exist.…”

Section: Perspective 2: Frame the Importance Of Family Health For Policy And Funding Decisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes

Barnes

Hanson

Novilla

et al. 2020

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Communities and populations are comprised of individuals and families who together affect the health of the community. The family unit is an unparalleled player for maintaining health and preventing disease for public health because members may support and nurture one another through life stages. Preliminary research confirms that family-oriented health promotion and disease prevention are promising strategies because the family unit is both a resource and a priority group needing preventative and curative services across the life course. Although there are growing numbers of successful efforts, family health systems are generally underutilized in health promotion practice. This lack of utilization in policy and practice have hampered the collection of robust evidence for family health. This paper purports that families are important actors in public health. Yet, since no one pattern for healthy families is known, public health practitioners can consider six principle-based approaches to legitimately and respectfully advance the families’ innate potential for health promotion and disease prevention. Each perspective aims to foster higher capacity for family health systems to function appropriately in public health practice. Health promotion practitioners and researchers can explore family health perspectives with the potential for systems policy and practice adjustments in public health.

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“…The use of data and samples was 1 theme we identified in some articles, 14,15 among the 25 articles (out of 127 articles) that were included for full-text review, based on relevance. Other themes we identified were intergenerational and parental responsibility 16 ; biopolitics and eugenics 17 ; discrimination 18 ; psychiatry and mental health 19 ; and the agenda of the ELSI-discussion itself on epigenetics. 9 These themes referred mostly to imagined future applications of epigenomics technology, but did not pertain to the process of test development and were thus not further used in our study.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical Issues in Research and Development of Epigenome-wide Technologies

2020

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To date, few scholarly discussions on ethical implications of epigenetics and epigenomics technologies have focused on the current phase of research and development, in which researchers are confronted with real and practical ethical dilemmas. In this article, a responsible research and innovation approach, using interviews and an expert meeting, is applied to a case of epigenomic test development for cervical cancer screening. This article provides an overview of ethical issues presently facing epigenomics researchers and test developers, and discusses 3 sets of issues in depth: (1) informed consent; (2) communication with donors and/or research participants, and (3) privacy and publication of data and research results. Although these issues are familiar to research ethics, some aspects are new and most require reinterpretation in the context of epigenomics technologies. With this article, we aim to start a discussion of the practical ethical issues rising in research and development of epigenomic technologies and to offer guidance for researchers working in the field of epigenetic and epigenomic technology.

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Responsibility in the age of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and epigenetics

Cited by 22 publications

References 17 publications

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes

Ethical Issues in Research and Development of Epigenome-wide Technologies

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