Woman who inherited fatal illness to sue doctors in groundbreaking case
by Robin McKie Science Editor from on (#43MWK)
Legal action over non-disclosure of father's Huntington's disease could lead to huge changes in patient confidentiality
Lawyers are bringing a case against a London hospital trust that could trigger major changes to the rules governing patient confidentiality. The case involves a woman who is suing doctors because they failed to tell her about her father's fatal hereditary disease before she had her own child.
The woman discovered - after giving birth - that her father carried the gene for Huntington's disease, a degenerative, incurable brain condition. Later she found out she had inherited the gene and that her own daughter, now eight, has a 50% chance of having it.
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