Confidential Information that Might Affect Others

Your employer is developing a diagnostic machine that performs genetic screening to identify inherited diseases.  While testing the device using samples provided by co-workers, you discover that one of your fellow employees has a treatable inherited disease.  You inform him about this and he tells you that he was not previously aware of it.  Do you have any obligation to inform his family?  If so, must you first obtain his consent for this?  What if he withholds consent?  What difference would it make if, instead of being affected with this disease, your co-worker were merely a carrier whose offspring would be predisposed to the disease?

C4L says:  The samples provided by the co-workers were presumably collected subsequent to the signing of a human subjects consent form.  The consent probably included a confidentiality clause and therefore disclosure of the results to anyone would be a breach of this consent.

K5R says:  The obligation is his, not yours, to tell his family, and nothing can or should be done without his consent, regardless of whether he has a clinical condition or is a carrier for a disease.