The genetic make-up of a candidate in the next US presidential election could be exploited by an opponent to raise doubts about their health or personality. So say medical researcher Robert Green and medical lawyer George Annas, both at Boston University.

Anyone who wants a sample of a candidate’s DNA could probably get it from coffee cups or cutlery that the person has used, or perhaps even handshakes. Combine that with the fact that a well-funded campaign could now afford to pay for a whole-genome scan, and the divulging of a candidate’s genome becomes a genuine possibility, Green and Annas write in The New England Journal of Medicine (vol 359, p 2192).

Such an act is more likely to aid demagoguery than make reliable predictions, though: at present, little is known about the genetic roots of personality, while most genes associated with a disease only slightly bump up the risk of developing the condition.

“You could say truthfully that candidate A is at elevated risk for disease X, but that might increase his or her risk from 6 per cent to 6.5 per cent,” says Green. “That’s not really very meaningful.”


Unscrupulous opponents could nevertheless try to exploit the idea that the candidate’s “bad genes” make him or her a poor choice, however misleading such a statement might be to those who don’t understand such details.

George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston, sees one possible benefit to set against such dangers. A dust-up over a presidential candidate’s genes could motivate the general public to learn more about genetics, he says.

Journal reference: New England Journal of Medicine, vol 359, p 2192