Slashdot Mirror
Genetic Information on Major Diseases Uncovered
gollum123 writes "A major advance in the genetic understanding behind several of the world's most common diseases is being reported by the BBC. A study tested some 17,000 people to find genetic markers for the various diseases. 'They found new genetic variants for depression, Crohn's disease, coronary heart disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 and 2 diabetes. The Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) involved 50 leading research groups analyzing the DNA from 2,000 patients for each of the seven conditions and 3,000 healthy volunteers. One of the most exciting finds was a previously unknown gene common to type 1 diabetes and Crohn's disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disorder, suggesting that they share similar biological pathways.' There is also disease by disease data at the BBC."
1 ggaggaggtg gaggaggagg gctgcttgag gaagtataag aatgaagttg tgaagctgag
61 attcccctcc attgggaccg gagaaaccag gggagccccc cgggcagccg cgcgcccctt
121 cccacggggc cctttactgc gccgcgcgcc cggcccccac ccctcgcagc accccgcgcc
181 ccgcgccctc ccagccgggt ccagAcggag ccatggggcc ggagccgcag tgagcaccat
241 ggagctggcg gccttgtgcc gctgggggct cctcctcgcc ctcttgcccc ccggagccgc
301 gagcacccaa gtgtgcaccg gcacagacat gaagctgcgg ctccctgcca gtcccgagac
Information, knowledge good! what we do with it, usually not so good.
Can we expect (hope for) laws preventing this information being retrieved or considered when calculating insurance premiums or other times when this may lead to discrimination?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
This is welcomed news for expecting parents. They can now potentially extract DNA from embryos to determine what diseases they are likely to have. With this technology, they could discard the bad ones and keep the good ones, thus producing healthy children. This may even help thrust forward our next step of evolution.
Imagine a world full of healthy people. The cost of healthcare would reduce greatly, thus allowing us to spend more on education and furthering the advancement of the human race.
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Who will have access to this information?
Some people fear that this information will be used to discriminate against disease-prone individuals in vivo...but it's far more likely that the first discrimination will happen long after birth.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Welcome to the brave new world, where everyone has a pre-existing condition.
The good news is, you'll have knowledge that could extend your life or even save it, if you could get treatment.
The bad news is, in countries with profit-based free-market medical insurance, you won't be to afford that get that treatment, because insurance companies will jack up their premiums when they find out about you.
Everyone has seen this coming for decades. Now it's here. I don't think the United States is ready for it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Speaking as a statistical genetics insider, I can tell you that the replication of results in this field is very poor. A team of scientists somewhere will announce they found a gene for XYZ, which is reported in scientific journals and mainstream media -- however, the findings fail to be replicated by other scientists, and the negative results are usually not published. Over the years, hundreds of scientists have claimed to find genes responsible for diabetes, hypertension, autism, etc.
Since there are tens of thousands of genes in the genome, a study with 17,000 subjects makes for less than one subject per gene. (Exactly how many "genes" are in the genome anyway? What exactly defines a "gene"? That is another vast topic.)
Statistically speaking, there should be at least ten subjects per covariate (gene) tested. There is a great deal of hoo-haa over microarrays, but the more you learn about microarrays, the more you will learn just how unreliable they are. The same "disease" can have vastly different pathophysiologies and genetic origins across population groups. Epigenetics, penetrance, expressivity, intron effects -- all multiply the complexity exponentially.
In short, genetics is to biology what nuclear fusion is to physics -- a promising technology that will remain a "few years away" for decades to come.
The purpose of insurance is to mitigate unknown, future risk. Anything that can be used to reduce the present uncertainty in the risk is a perfectly reasonably factor in determining premiums. Insurance is a way of trading future risk for present cost within a given risk-class equivilency group. It works best when the risk classes are finely divided; in other words, when the premiums paid reflect the best known estimate of the individual insuree's risk.
If you were to force the insurance agency to charge a single premium, ignoring individual risk factors, then those who know they have less risk will find the premiums excessive and choose not to participate. As a result the premiums would have to be increased, and yet more marginal customers would leave. In the end you'd be left with just the highest-risk customer(s) paying a premium appropriate to their level of risk. All "non-discriminatory" insurance really does is make it impossible to get low-risk insurance.
As for the specific problem of being born with an expensive genetic issue, I think there is a way to leverage insurance here as well: the parents can take out an insurance policy on the child prior to conception, based on their own genetic risk factors.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
the average person is paying about average healthcare. you're probably paying close to average. if you believed you were low risk, would you opt-out? i wouldnt.
Now this is something I have thought about long and hard (though no hard research to back it up) about. WHat happens when we do get the power to *poof* the bad genes out of existance from an unborn infant? Well, obviously they won't develop "problem A", but what about other factors? For instance, I know that black people in regions of Africa are born with sickle-cell anemia, but this also helps prevent a certain disease commonly transported by insects in the region. How do we know what (if any) other things might depend on that particular gene?
And on that note, someone mentioned that this may well lead us to our next step in evolution -- that may well be true, but shouldn't evolution happen in response to natural factors by nature's invisible hand? Not some doc in a lab? I mean, so many people on Slashdot are keen on letting the "ivisible hand of capitalism" work the market, why shouldn't we let nature decide what is best for us?
I believe this sort of thing was covered with the Asgaard in Stargate SG-1, they died out because they genetically modified their bodies past a certain point where they could no longer reproduce, only extend their own lives. Now, I am not saying there is any scientific basis for something liek that happening, but aren't parables supposed to make you at least think before acting?