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Pattern Recognition Software Enables MS Blood Test
ProteomicsWizard writes "Using proteomic spectral pattern recognition software, scientists have described a way to diagnose Multiple Sclerosis from a blood sample. The technology is applicable to other diseases including various cancers. With the technology available for identifying uncureable diseases before they manifest themselves, would you want to know?"
My first thought when I read the title. Guess that's a sign of too much Slashdot.
"With the technology available for identifying uncureable diseases before they manifest themselves, would you want to know?"
When a cure or treatment is available: usually yes.
If no cure or treatment is available things become a bit less clear, but what if by the time the illness manifests itself, a cure is available, but it's only effective prior to the first symptoms?
Sometimes ignorance kills.
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I would definitly want to know. That way, I could either get the best help as early as possible in order to extend my enjoyable life or, were the time left found to be short, quit my job and go on a bender.
But...
I would want strict legislation preventing corporations/insurance providers/employers from getting the results of said tests. You can't tell me with a straight face they wouldn't use such information in hiring/coverage decisions.
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I would feel so stupid if I had the opportunity to know what would kill me and not taken it and the opportunity to take steps to rectify it. Yes, MS is incurable, but "incurable" is only a measure of our current knowledge and ability, not an absolute. Also, some things such as cancer are measures of risk factors, and can be avoided by behaviour modification.
"Incurable" has a way of changing pretty quickly. Imagine, if you will, the amount of money which would be pumped into MS research if a sitting President found himself (or herself) on the road to developing it?
Knowledge is power.
HBH
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
This is a good prelminary result, but we know from experience with other blood tests for disease states that these tests have to be verified with many different types of healthy and sick groups of people before the test can be considered a good one. For example, is this really just a test for active myelin breakdown? There are urine tests for that already, and they have their problems with sensitivity and specificity.
;-).
That said, it would be nice to have a cheap, reliable blood test for MS (multiple sclerosis not Micro$oft)
Remember:
* MS == Microsoft
* MS == Multiple Sclerosis
* MS == Mississippi
All 3 of these require more education spending to combat evil.
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If you could find out with high certainty that you would or would not get a particular disease, you would only buy insurance for those risks which apply to you (or low-deductible insurance; high-deductible would do for low probabilities). But when everyone is doing this, the odds of anyone buying insurance NOT making a claim would sink toward zero. Either the cost of insurance rises toward the cost of treatment, or the insurance company goes broke. You either stop being able to get insurance or having any reason to buy what's available (if you needed it, you'd be better off paying out of pocket and skipping the middleman).
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If you learn you have this problem, then you can no longer check "no health problems" when applying for life insurance. Otherwise it's fraud -- if the insurer discovers it, they might not pay when you die.
The BANF site describes the technology as using "a complex mathematical processes and supercomputers to ensure the highest level of accuracy and quality control." Do any in the /. community believe that a complex mathematical process and supercomputers actually ensure quality control?
They give several reasons; the one that sticks out in my mind is that a positive test can tell you to start making the (emotional, financial, etc.) preparations for raising a "special needs" child.