Question

How could some pre symptomatic testing be considered toxic for the individual testing, especially testing at an early age?

Answer 1

Presymptomatic testing is done before the onset of a disease or expression of symptoms .This is done in order to predict whether the individual will suffer from that disase in a future or not.But it has many disadvantages which include-

some disorders that "run in families" can be traced to shared environmental exposures rather than any inherited susceptibility. In addition, some mutations detected by a positive test may never lead to disease. Furthermore, because existing tests look only for the more common mutations in a gene, some disease-causing mutations may escape .Sometimes it is blamed for detection.of the tests' potential for provoking anxiety, and risks for discrimination and social stigmatization could overshadow the benefits of testing.

Also sometimes testing procedure itself could provoke toxicity in a person who is not suffering from a disease.For eg.Dermatologists apply patch tests in patients with dermatitis, to find out whether their skin condition may be caused or aggravated by a contact allergy.In this tests several chemicals are applied on a patch and this patch is placed on the skin for about 24 hours.Sometimes the results give fruitful outcomes and many other times a vulnerable person gets skin problems from these applied new chemicals which results in the toxicity of the skin and it continues to persist even after the patch is removed for abut months or years.