Implications for genetic testing for carriers for people with both Thalassaemia and other inherited conditions.

Depending on the level of confidentiality taken on disclosure of information about genetic testing many areas of a person’s life can be affected.
In particular it can affect their ability to obtain life/health insurance, if it is a legal obligation to disclose information to these companies to obtain insurance, like it is at present for past health conditions.
Also, it could affect a person’s employment as if a person with an inherited disease that will appear in later life (eg. Huntington’s disease), particularly if the job involves training at a cost to the company.
Furthermore, it has implications on the family of the carrier. If they have seen the sufferings of the disease and a chance is that their child may have it then they may opt to not have children full stop. Could lead to family break downs as a result of one parent’s wish to not have a child or the placement of blame on one another if a child is born with a disorder.
Some inherited conditions can be multifactorial, and so not be just down to the genes, but people can over react and change their life plan even though they may never actually suffer the disorder.
On a legal basis it brings up many issues on who should be allowed to know about a person’s genetic portrait and the possible stigmas attached to carriers of inherited conditions.
In a good way, a person is able to weigh up the risks, and know of any conditions they may hold and the likely hood of passing it on. It gives a person more information in that way.
Therefore, the implications of genetic testing for those who are carriers of inherited conditions such as Thalassaemia could affect their insurance, relationships, possibility of having children, employment, and their decision of whether to have children or not, and so it pretty much affects their whole life.

http://www.lbl.gov/Education/ELSI/genetic-testing.html
and all other sites pretty much involved with the ELSI genetic testing thing, but this is the better one.