Stanford, U.C. Berkeley Offer Students Genetic Testing

cappp writes with this snippet from Scientific American: "This week Berkeley will mail saliva sample kits to every incoming freshman and transfer student. Students can choose to use the kits to submit their DNA for genetic analysis, as part of an orientation program on the topic of personalized medicine. But U.C. Berkeley isn't the only university offering its students genetic testing. Stanford University's summer session started two weeks ago, including a class on personal genomics that gives medical and graduate students the chance to sequence their genotypes and study the results."

Comments

Re:Admissions

[gstoddart]

Why is it that whenever DNA analysis turns up in something other than a homicide case, it seems that most people automatically thinks privacy?

Because every piece of information you voluntarily give away will inevitably end up in places you couldn't foresee, that's why.

You innocently give it to your school, and it ends up in a corporate database, or being used by the government in ways you didn't think of. The standard scenario is being denied insurance because you're predisposed to a certain illness and are therefore going to cost them money.

It's no different from all of the kids on Facebook who don't fully understand that if you broadcast everything, there can be unexpected backlashes. If you just freely hand over this kind of stuff, you have no idea of what could happen in the future.

Perhaps the most important thing is to start applying some critical reasoning to the information we give out every day, and ponder what might happen in the future. What happens when your DNA becomes mandatory?? It starts seeming like the dystopian future we've all been hoping wouldn't happen.

This kind of stuff never stays as only the reason you were told it was going to be used. So, some of us have a default position of "explain, exactly, to me why you want this, and what you're going to do with it". Would you give your saliva to Wal Mart to qualify for a discount?

I know I sound like a representative of the Tin Foil Hat Brigade, but just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone isn't out there trying to get you.