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The Personal Genome Project Hits the Web
Ian Lamont writes "The Personal Genome Project has released the data sets and descriptions of traits, ethnic background and other information of the first ten volunteers, which include the project director and nine other people with backgrounds in genetics, medicine, and biotechnology. While the human genome was first sequenced at the beginning of this decade, what's special about this project is these 10 participants are having their names, genome, and other personal data gleaned from questionnaires shared openly on the Web, where interested researchers can freely access them. One of the ultimate aims of the project is to create a public database of 100,000 volunteers that researchers and other parties can use to determine what traits, diseases or other characteristics are associated with specific genetic markers. When asked why volunteers are requested to attach their names to the Web records, the project director said the data could be used by researchers in other fields outside of genetics, including forensic science and historical research. While this project opens the door for some interesting and potentially life-saving research, there may also be difficulties or problems for people whose records are posted on the Web. Would you participate? Would you share your name, along with your genome, disease history, and traits? Why or why not?"
How about Huntington's, for example. If you have the gene, it's not a question of if you get the symptoms, but when. For the purposes of insurance, this makes it a pre-existing condition.
Yes, there are some conditions that current genetic testing will indicate that you have a higher percentage chance of getting that condition. But there are other conditions which have pass/fail testing. If you fail one of those tests, you don't get to purchase insurance for that condition. At best, you get to negotiate a payment plan to cover all the fee's (which may still be called insurance, but really isn't).
As an aside, there are companies that do this. I was researching dental insurance plans, and there was one that I found that just looked at how many people would be in the plan, estimated how much it would cost for their dental care for the year + 10 %, and the monthly payment was that amount divided by 12. After twelve months, they would total up the actual charges, add 10%, then either refund the extra to you if it was less or you had to pay the extra if it was more than what you had already paid. It was called insurance, but it really was just straight financing.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
How I pity the citizens of what they themselves call the greatest nation on earth, how can you not see the benefit of research into DNA? How can you live with a health care system that is so broken that you fear the very breakthroughs that can save your live some day?
All the (socialist as I am sure McCain would call us) countries of the world will gladly have all citizens screened for various DNA predispositions, you know why? Because we can use it to make health care cheaper, if we can prevent diseases we save a ton of money, if we can catch cancer and other diseases before they spread, we save a ton of money, oh and lives will most likely be saved as well, not that that seems to have anything to do with healthcare in the USA..
I honestly do pity anyone that has to fear their own health care system..