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To the Editor: Dr Botkin discussed whether the privacy of family members should be protected in research.¹ We disagree with his proposal that family history information about psychiatric disorders should be subjected to unique restrictions. He argues that cancer, diabetes, and arthritis are "no longer considered highly sensitive conditions," but that "conditions with a behavioral or psychiatric component, such as alcoholism or schizophrenia, remain stigmatizing." He suggests that for psychiatric disorders alone, identifiable relatives must give consent before a subject reports on family history because the slight possibility of breaching the index subject's confidentiality represents more than a minimal risk to the relative.

Botkin's separation of psychiatric from nonpsychiatric disorders is unwarranted, as modern medicine recognizes no fundamental distinction between them. Comprehensive family histories are part of every thorough medical examination and include psychiatric and nonpsychiatric syndromes because etiologic factors and symptoms overlap. Furthermore, having a psychiatric disorder is not . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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RELATED ARTICLE

Protecting the Privacy of Family Members in Survey and Pedigree Research
Jeffrey R. Botkin
JAMA. 2001;285(2):207-211.
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