Genetic testing is usually something people view as a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, an individual identified as a carrier of a certain gene knows the risk of passing it to an offspring. On the other hand, that knowledge can bring with it legal, ethical and social issues an individual or family may not be ready to face. But through training, it may prepare personnel in human services and health-related fields as well as families themselves to deal with what lies ahead. Grants were made available through the National Institute of Health as part of a federal initiative called the national Human Genome Project. The project was designed to fund scientific research into all areas of genetics by the year 2000, said Dr. Valerie DeCoux, project director for the IDS grant.