100,000 Californians To Be Gene Sequenced

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."

Comments

Not sequencing

[Anonymous Coward]

This not (gene or genome) sequencing. Rather, it picks up single nucleotide changes (SNPs). Still valuable information, but no new mutation will be discovered with this method.

Sequencing would be a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive.

Re:Not sequencing

[SUB7IME]

Anonymous coward is correct. This is genotyping, which is orders of magnitude less resource-intensive than gene sequencing.

Genotyping | sequencing || driving down the highway | Lewis and Clark's journey

Sequencing is pathfinding (they are not doing this). Genotyping is exploring the path that you already know is there (this is what they are doing). On the sequencing front, there is currently a 1000 genomes project - a massive collaboration of worldwide importance due to its difficulty and expense. On the other hand, genotyping 100,000 people is done all the time (heart attack GWAS, etc). The two concepts are enormously different.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[LUH 3418]

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.

Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[Red Flayer]

That's only "bad" if you turn out to be predisposed, in which case your higher risk will no longer be subsidized and you'll have to pay fair premiums in proportion to your risk.

Thereby making the cost of insurance prohibitive to those with genetic predisposition to serious, expensive-to-treat maladies. This works out exactly the same as denying those people insurance coverage, unless they are very wealthy.
This defeats the general purpose of medical insurance (which IS for the healthy to subsidize the sick).

From a libertarian standpoint (yours, I'm assuming, from prior discussions), why not just get rid of health insurance altogether? That's the only way to ensure that everyone pays their "fair" costs into the system. That seems to be what you're getting at, so why mince words?

Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[element-o.p.]

Awesome. I can see it now: those who actually need health insurance will be unable to get any. Those who will be making payments for the next n decades, but rarely -- if ever -- actually obtaining any benefit from the insurance will be the only ones who will qualify for coverage.

Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[ishobo]

From a libertarian standpoint (yours, I'm assuming, from prior discussions), why not just get rid of health insurance altogether? That's the only way to ensure that everyone pays their "fair" costs into the system. That seems to be what you're getting at, so why mince words?

Bravo. Any free market libertarian should not be using any type of insurance. Afterall, insurance is a form of wealth redistribution.

Re:The Good, the Bad, the Ugly...

[JesseMcDonald]

Any free market libertarian should not be using any type of insurance. Afterall, insurance is a form of wealth redistribution.

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of both the concept of "wealth redistribution" in respect to libertarian philosophy and the concept of insurance itself.

First, insurance is not "wealth redistribution" even in the limited sense described below, at least when it's not actually being turned into some sort of forced-"charity" scheme via regulation. The projected value of an insurance subscription is equal to the projected value of the premiums being paid (less overhead and the insurer's profit margin, of course, just as with any other service). You're neither subsidizing nor being subsidized by your fellow insurees. What you get from insurance—what makes it worthwhile enough to justify the overhead—is that people tend to prefer that their future costs be predictable. Insurance takes a high-cost, low-probability future event and, by pooling it with many similar events, turns it into a low-cost, predictable event in the form of periodic insurance premiums. Critically, risk is conserved with respect to each insuree; no one pays extra to subsidize anyone else's above-average projected cost (risk). In retrospect, of course, some will be compensated more than others depending on the actual circumstances, but ex ante no insurees can be said to benefit at others' expense.

Second, "wealth redistribution" is only a problem when it's involuntary. Donating to charity is perfectly consistent with libertarian philosophy, and something many libertarians do frequently. When libertarians speak negatively of "wealth redistribution" they're referring to redistribution by force, involuntarily, which is an entirely separate matter. The force is what makes it wrong, not the redistribution.

Re:Other countries

[Schickeneder]

You have universal healthcare in Sweden, so all the citizens should theoretically get equal/fair treatment anyway. People in America aren't generally afraid of having that "personal" information known, rather they worry about the possible consequences of private healthcare providers and employers accessing that data and discriminating.

Re:Damned sure glad...

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on how you define "publish." I know I have many copies of my DNA, and I've even distributed some of them.

Re:Damned sure glad...

[SUB7IME]

This is why we passed GINA: http://www.genome.gov/24519851