Our Editor’s Pick for our March 2018 issue is “Ethical Guidelines for Genetic Research on Alcohol Addiction and Its Applications,” by Audrey R. Chapman, Adrian Carter, Jonathan M. Kaplan, Kylie Morphett, and Wayne Hall. In this important paper, Chapman and her coauthors examine the ethical issues surrounding genetic research on alcohol addiction. The authors take on this multiply complicated issue, where difficult questions arising out of genetic research combine with the urgent ethical issues alcoholism and other addictions raise, and conclude that “genetic testing is not yet ready for use in the prediction of alcohol dependence liability.” With ever-improving genetic technology and renewed public attention to the social issues addiction raises, this paper takes up questions that are of immediate practical significance.
