Ethical issues in direct-to-consumer medical testing

Alberto’s presentation provides an overview of the main ethical issues raised by DTC medical testing. He focuses in particular 1) on the relationship and tension between autonomy and risk of harm and 2) on the potential changing role of the medical profession and relative ethical obligations. Alberto will raise, and try to answer, the question of what ethical costs can be addressed through regulation, which ones (if any) are acceptable costs given the potential benefits of DTC medical testing, and which costs are too large to be acceptable. Alberto Giubilini is a philosopher and bioethicist at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, as well as the Academic Lead of TORCH Medical Humanities at Oxford. He works mainly in public health ethics and medical ethics, including ethical issues raised by new medical technologies. This talk was recorded at our event ‘Direct-to-Consumer Medical Testing: Exploring Opportunities & Challenges’ which took place at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford on Tuesday 5th May 2026.