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100,000 Californians To Be Gene Sequenced

Posted by Soulskill on from the homing-in-on-the-prius-gene dept.

eldavojohn writes "A hundred thousand elderly Californians (average age 65) will be gene sequenced by the state using samples of their saliva. This will be the first time such a large group has had their genes sequenced, and it is hoped to be a goldmine for genetic maladies — from cardiovascular diseases to diabetes to even the diseases associated with aging. Kaiser Permanente patients will be involved, and they are aiming to have half a million samples ready by 2013. Let's hope that they got permission from the patients' doctors first."

5 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly... by LUH+3418 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The good thing is that this kind of data will help us develop tests to predict the occurrence of many diseases, and perhaps understand their causes better.

    The bad is that private insurance companies are likely to eventually *require* you to get a DNA sample, and possibly reject you if they determine your genes predispose you to old-age diseases.

    Where it gets ugly, is that this will be yet another tool that could allow screening of unborn fetuses, and potentially selective abortions. I'm not personally against this. We're overpopulated anyways, but some people clearly don't like that idea.

    1. Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly... by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is no such thing as 'like-risk' -- the question is to what extent we can factor known risk factors into premiums.

      The idealized model of insurance places individuals into different "pools" depending on their individual risk, with each pool corresponding to a specific risk and equivalent premium. It is assumed that there are sufficient individuals within each pool for things to average out. However, that's just an abstraction. In the real world risk is a continuous variable, so every individual would be in a separate pool (with no averaging). Instead, everyone pays into a single pool in proportion to their respective risk. It works out the same in the end.

      Effectively, those who incur reimbursable expense are subsidized by those who don't.

      When you look at things from an ex post cost basis, yes. However, that's an artificial point of view; when considering whether to invest in insurance you don't know the shape of future events. The whole point of insurance is to take that uncertainty and turn it into a stable situation from an ex ante point of view, where risk, not cost, is the determining factor. And in terms of risk there is no subsidy; given all the information known ex ante there is no reason for any insuree to believe they are subsidizing anyone. All insurees within a given pool are equally likely to be compensated. (Or, avoiding the "pool" abstraction, all insurees have a probability-weighted projected compensation which is proportional to their premium.)

      No one willingly joins an insurance program expecting to pay in substantially more than their individual risk—not when competitors are free to offer them lower premiums—and no insurance program could survive for long without balancing risk if low-risk individuals are permitted to opt out. Ergo, no voluntary insurance program can retain ex ante subsidies over the long run.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    2. Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly... by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No. What I said and what you said are fundamentally different. You assume like-risk, I don't. Furthermore, I don't assume that pools are formed by individuals. I merely assume that a demand exists, and that there is a product to fill that demand.

      You also misunderstand the reason that insurance works. It works BECAUSE cost is externalized onto all the people who pay for more insurance than they need.

      If people would pay for exactly the insurance they need, they could just as well pay a regular amount into a savings fund, and draw down from there once something happens. That's the only thing they need. If they encounter a situation that exceeds the monthly amount they're paying, they're directly being subsidized by others - who could be paying less if they wouldn't be subsidizing others.

      Let me repeat that: the entire point of insurance is to overcharge a lot of people a little bit so that a few people don't go bankrupt. Plus generate profit for the insurer.

      Finally, you also seem to misunderstand my last comment. There is a total cost to society as a whole when people and companies go bankrupt. There are the obvious ones (layoffs, unemployment benefits being paid out, etc) and the less obvious ones (kids being raised in a worse environment, and being a bigger drain on society down the road). Sometimes, it is cheaper for society as a whole to subsidize the prevention of catastrophic events (such as a medically-related bankruptcy) rather than mop up after it.

      It has nothing to do with it being cheaper because it doesn't come out of my pocket. Absolutely nothing. It is cheaper because in the balance sheet of a society, it is less expensive.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  2. Consent by kidsizedcoffin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I didn't see it in the article, but was consent obtained from each of these patients to use their DNA in this study? Or is this one of those OPT-OUT programs that companies think consumers like?

  3. Other countries by FenixBrood · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I live in Sweden and here we take DNA samples of all newborn and put the samples with SSN and parents name in a national database. The database can then be accessed by scientists for study. We have done this for decades. I haven't heard anybody here really care about being in the database.