Justice committee  Thank you very much. First of all, thank you to Dr. Forbes and the CMA for taking a very reasoned and proactive stance on Bill S-201, and thanks to all of you for the privilege of addressing this committee on behalf of the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists. We are the doc

Justice committee  Thank you for that question. Physicians must discuss genetic testing with their patients when there is an indication for that test. That's exactly what I do. I see patients who may have genetic conditions. I do a medical assessment, I counsel them about the likelihood that they

Justice committee  I guess one response to that would be that in the absence of any legislation we have that ability as well. As you know, physicians are regulated through the college of physicians and surgeons. For us to discriminate against our patients would be considered gross misconduct. There

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  No, I think the intent is to allow for appropriate health care to go ahead and not be hampered.

Justice committee  Yes, although we also hear from family members who do come to us that their relatives are choosing not to solicit or not to act on a referral. In that regard, even as recently as two days ago I was paged by one of my colleagues whose child is due to be seen in our clinic regardin

Justice committee  Yes. I think the best data is evidence that has already been presented to this committee both by Dr. Cohn from SickKids and by Dr. Yvonne Bombard, who has done research in this area. I'd make reference to both their testimonies.

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely.

Justice committee  Not being lawyers and not being constitutional lawyers, we're at a disadvantage, but I've spoken to the senator and I've also read the testimony from the very esteemed lawyers who presented to this committee. Our organization has no concerns whatsoever about the constitutionality

Justice committee  No, not to us.

Justice committee  If I may, I could offer an example. The inherited arrhythmias, such as long QT syndrome, are a good example. Let's say one's parent has the condition. Then one is at a 50% risk to have it. A genetic test can say yes or no as to whether that person has a predisposition to potentia

Justice committee  Absolutely. I think it's hard to overstate what's happening. It's a real revolution in medicine. It is something that we had hoped and anticipated would happen when all of the three billion letters in the human genomic code were put together in a draft sequence in 2000 and then f

Justice committee  You would have heard earlier from my colleague Dr. Cohn, who has data that indicate that between 30% and 35% of individuals who would have been eligible and interested in participating in genetic research and genomics research declined to participate specifically because of this.

Justice committee  Certainly, they have much less trouble enrolling patients in genomics-type research studies.

Justice committee  Thank you for that question. There are two categories of genetic tests with respect to this question. One of them is the single gene test, such as the test for Huntington's disease, where there is a definitive test result: you either will or will not develop that disease, depend