You and your family

Medical diagnostics will see new advances sooner than therapeutic interventions due to differences in research, development, and regulatory cycles. Diagnostic tests will become ubiquitous (from the internet to shopping malls and airports), inexpensive, and easy to conduct, often without medical oversight. This abundance of diagnostic measures will present vexing problems for many of us. How much do we really want to know about our health, especially when it is unclear how much we can alter it? In addition, questions will arise about the reliability of the tests, interpretation of results, and what to do with them. As with current amniocentesis tests for the unborn, or full-body CT and MRI scans for adults, future diagnostic procedures migh....