Ethical concerns in the research and treatment of complex disease.

Research on and treatment of complex diseases raise familiar ethical issues concerning informed consent, privacy, confidentially, insurability, employability and social stigma. Consideration of the family as the unit of study, or point of medical intervention, presents some additional twists to these common ethical concerns. In addition, complex diseases present particular ethical challenges because different social and political incentives accompany placing emphasis on either the genetic or the environmental components of the diseases (e.g. in allocating research funds or ascribing responsibility for illness).