Development screening is a process that can indicate disease in a patient before he or she develops symptoms. he procedures surrounding infant and childhood development screening are especially sensitive to the welfare of these patients because they have not reached a legal age of consent. Bioethicists, research scientist, and doctors overwhelmingly agree that an infant or child should not be subjected to screening unless the positive result of the test (the presence of disease) will lead to preventative or palliative care. This opinion therefore discourages testing of infants or children for adult onset diseases, if being able to predict the disease has no utility.

Recent progress in the typing of human DNA will continue to advance developmental screening, the ultimate purpose of which is to prevent and treat disease. Some screening tests for newborns, such as the test...