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Your Genome Scanned While You Wait
dotc writes "A Wired reporter has his DNA scanned for disease predispositions. While we all knew this was coming soon, it's still a little strange to read the first-person account."
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And of course, the next news article will be that HMO's have begun rejecting medical procedures based on the predisposition for certain diseases of certain genomes.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
1) People will take predispositions too seriously. People with 'bad' genes will think they're doomed and live like it. People without any 'bad' genes will think they're bulletproof and live like it.
2) This won't just be used for diseases. You may remember in the movie Gattica there was one of these devices being used for personality analisis. How long before (even if made illegal) employers feed this information in about employees? People run their date's information through a computer to try and predict compatibility?
...was that this was coming. The question now are, when and will people accept this as a moral practice, or reject it as something unethical.
Sure, you can find a few statistical correlations between a few very dangerous diseases and genetic markers, but as the story points out, they still don't know enough to say for certain that a person will get breast cancer at age 47 1/2, or have a heart attack at 53 while climbing 3 flights of stairs.
We don't know enough about the genetic code yet (whether we should even try to learn it is another debate, you need only look at how Western Society has been damaged by the results of invetigating the poor fertility of yam-eating Mexican Indians) to do more than rough guesses that are about as accurate as asking about your families medical history.
If you want to live longer, eat right, exercise and don't smoke. I'm sure our Pope will soon ban this useless exercise, anyhow.
A. Rightmann
Did anyone other than me just get *TOTALLY* creeped-out by that article? Not the Gattica references, although the social implications are staggering (i.e. the Philip-Morris quote), but more of the feeling that knowing all the things about my body that *could* go wrong, and trying to treat them in advance is just something that we don't understand the ramifications of entirely?
is *NOT* the same as actually being diseased/sick. Just because you carry a ressive trait for diabetes or heart disease does not mean that you will suffer from either. I already know I am "predisposed to heartdisease and diabetes", my grandfather had it. I do not need a DNA scan to tell me.
You tell some people they are predispositioned for heart disease and they are going to think it is a death warrant. Even though it is only a chance, people will throw money at it in attempt to do something about it. More importantly this will spawn a whole new branch of medicine where you sell drugs/therapy to healthy people. We are already starting to see that practice today, look at the logic behind pepcid/ac, the heartburn medication you take over the counter *before* you have heartburn.
Just my two cents.
Well, actually it is quite some ways, they have to go from checking to manipulation.
Gattica was an intresting movie, but there were a lot of things that did not make sense. For one thing, the genetic tests were omnipresent - they alone determined what job you would get and whom you would date. They even had to take genetic tests to get into work every day, and the company would search through its facilities to make sure that nobody with inferior genes was present.
On the other hand, the main character did not have 'improved' genes, and so he had to falsify his identity to get a job. However, he appeared to be just as competent as all the other people where he worked, perhaps more so. Therin lies the contradiction - why would corporations go through great lengths to exclude people with inferior genes, if those are not real indicators of performance?
A different scenario is that genetic manipulation really does make people smarter and more competent. But then this could probably be identified through normal tests and interviews.
I don't know which scenario is scarier.
Tor
I wonder how long before we hear: Only those with something to hide would refuse to be screened. Using encryption (for example) just pisses off government, but there's nobody with deep pockets brib^H^H^H^H lobbying them to ban it. But insuring sickly people costs insurers big money. How much would it cost them to buy laws to make screening mandatory, or at least to allow them (all of them) to insist on it if you want a policy? At the least, I expect to see policy rises for those who refuse a screening, on the basis that only those with something to hide...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
"Therin lies the contradiction - why would corporations go through great lengths to exclude people with inferior genes, if those are not real indicators of performance?"
For much the same reason why corporations go to great lengths to exclude people without a 'good' education. They're social thought of as being superior people, even if they aren't. That was the gist of the movie.
Please don't do crap like this.
While screening is an ominous first step, prenatal screening and gene therapy are where this gets really frightening. For starters, as with any cutting edge medical technology, this will be expensive. Therefore, those who would "improve" the dna of their offspring will be the elites. As they branch out from diseases to other areas...intelligence, looks, etc., the line between the rich and the poor will only grow wider. And here in the U.S., minorities represent a greater percentage of the poor than their overall numbers, meaning any growing divide between rich and poor will also widen the racial divide. Unless society comes up with some good answers, the spells big time social problems for the future.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Think beyond the job skills scenario a little -- if a corporation had the blueprints to the DNA of every employee and discovered that one of the employees had a predisposition to lung cancer, would it be wise to spend money on training and associated other job costs for said employee?
The question was would it be wise, not would it be immoral.
-- jimmycarter
With the risk of getting a flamebait mod, perhaps it is worth pointing out that the technology is not all bad.
So it is creepy to get a genetic test, but also it can be quite useful. If you have predisposition for an illness then you are much better off knowing it in advance so that you can test frequently and adapt your behavior (e.g., diet).
And of course, if you still don't like it, you don't have to.
Now somebody will predict that insurance companies will force everyone to do the test, I'll save you the trouble and reply right away. The scenario is unlikely, because there are quite a few legal limitations on what these companies can and cannot ask for - and the majority of registered voters are very sceptical.
But even if it did happen, would it necessarily be so bad? Widespread testing would make the total, and therefore the average, cost of insurance lower. This is because it is easier and cheaper to treat illnesses at an early stage. Certainly those with certain predispositions would get a higher premium, but would not even that be preferable over paying a standard premium and then getting an illness that could have been averted by frequent tests and say the right diet? One could also think of taxes and subsidies supporting those that got higher premiums. Since the total medical costs would go down, it is at least theoretically possible to come up with a system where everyone is better off.
Tor
Everytime I read about genetic testing and the possible repercussions from it (job discrimination, social discrimination, insurance discrimination, law discrimination), the idea resonates of obtaining resources and greed. Even though we humans tend to think of ourselves as civilized beings, we are just as savage as the animals we watch on National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel. Our society is built upon genetic and social connectedness, i.e., birds of a feather flock together. The little camps or groups of people arise from genetic similarities which are expressed as behavior or abilities. People with certain genes will have some abilities, whether they are exceptional use of language, abstract thinking, exceptional physical endurance and motor control (athletes), deviant thinking and behavior (criminals tend to congregate in prisons) will tend to socialize with one another. It's up to the individuals with these genes to utilize what evolution and natural selection provided them to obtain resources necessary to ensure survivability of their genes. Just as the law makers, insurance industry, private industry, and educational system (Ivy League, public, and private schools) would like to have access to this information, it's almost like watching the Lions and Hyienas fighting over the injured gazelle. Law makers want to protect the people or industry to get re-elected. The insurance industry wants to limit insurance to diseased people to increase profits (they're cheating at the game of CHANCE and RISK). Private industry wants more efficient people (education/abilities) to increase profits. Schools only want the best, most successful students to increase their stature and graduation rate. Everyone wants to flex their intellectual and economic muscles with this issue to GAIN RESOURCES that help their organization or cause: GREED!
Let's face it folks, this is a central fact of biology and chemistry: Molecules are competing for energy to sustain the transition state for metabolism and reproduction to continue. It doesn't matter that the needs are currently met, "more" is always sought "just in case" (random events) the energy isn't available in the future. "More" is always sought to prevent foreign genes from being over expressed which might lead lead to native gene extinction.
I never thought much about the significance of an electron being promoted to an excited state in an antibonding orbital until I read this article.
Gosh, it's fun being a chemist.