Genomics Impact On US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion

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Genomics Impact On US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 12, 2013 @11:57AM from the g-a-c-t-money dept.

sciencehabit writes "Despite a slow economy, business in genomics has boomed and has directly and indirectly boosted the U.S. economy by $965 billion since 1988, according to a new study (pdf). In 2012 alone, genomics-related research and development, along with relevant industry activities, contributed $31 billion to the U.S. gross national product and helped support 152,000 jobs, the biomedical funding advocacy group United for Medical Research announced today in Washington, D.C. Based on total U.S. spending, the country gets $65 back for every $1 it spends on the field."

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umm... by bananaquackmoo · 2013-06-12 12:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

So in other words this stuff really is overpriced?
1. Re:umm... by slick7 · 2013-06-12 12:56 · Score: 1
  
  So in other words this stuff really is overpriced?
  The real questions are; Who controls it and, profits from it and who benefits from it? Obviously not the owners of the genome, you know, you, me, and the others who acquired it the good old fashioned way.
  
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  The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
2. Re:umm... by rtb61 · 2013-06-12 13:18 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The real questions are out of whose pocket does that $65 come from and into whose pocket is it going and of course how many people are dying because it is priced beyond their reach.
  
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  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
3. Re:umm... by tloh · 2013-06-12 15:31 · Score: 1
  
  What price would you put on a life? Far from being just another business, the result of both basic and applied research derived from Genomics contributes beyond direct economic growth, benefiting all of society when you consider diseases prevented, lives saved, and improved public health. We are still in the infancy of this young field, but consider the wide ranging effects of historic innovations in medical science such as antiseptic sanitation, discovery/use of antibiotics, and immunotherapy for comparison.
  Even if we consider a narrower perspective - From the article:
  
  The HGP has had a profound positive effect, not only in human health and medicine, but also in
  fields as diverse as: renewable energy development, food and agriculture, veterinary medicine,
  industrial biotechnology, environmental protection, justice and national security.
  
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  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
4. Re:umm... by jovial73 · 2013-06-13 00:35 · Score: 1
  
  We make genomes the old fashioned way.... we inherit it.
5. Re:umm... by demachina · 2013-06-13 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Its a little one side to think genomics will be all upside. The flip side...
  A. What will be the costs if someone designs genetically targetted weapons, i.e. biological weapons that only target certain races or even individual people. I read an article a while back that the Secret Service strives to minimize access to the President's DNA, for example skin cells left in sheets, to prevent someone from targetting his genome with a biological weapon.
  B. What will the cost be when people or nation states try to genetically engineer for superior intelligence, strength and speed to create an actual master race. It might be a win for them if they succeed, not so much for everyone else.
  C. What will the cost be if eugenics returns and people who are considered genetically inferior are sterilized and their genome is wiped out. Reference B.
  D. What will be the cost be when someone tries to genetical engineer a virus, bacteria, plant or animal, it goes horribly wrong and results in a global threat.
  
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  @de_machina
6. Re:umm... by tloh · 2013-06-13 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed? The same has been said of nuclear power, and we are all still here. In this day and age, controlling what information (genomic or otherwise) people can access and how they use it isn't that easy. Just ask the RIAA and MPAA.
  B. Don't worry about it! Everyone knows that Kirk, Spock, and Bones will always save us from Khan - regardless of the timeline. Reference JJ Abrams & Gene Roddenberry
  C. On a more serious note, eugenics is nothing new - the idea has been around for hundreds of years. Just because the technology makes it more feasible doesn't mean we are reckless enough to flirt with it again. I think the Nazis and an ensuing war in which they lost might have soured the idea in some people's minds.
  D. Those of us who actually have lab research experience don't see things that way. Contrary to what Hollywood will have you believe, this stuff is not so easy to do accidentally. It is a little like using Matthew Broderick's War Games as a point of reference for actual computer security. Would *you* like to play a game?? You have a lot more to fear from mother nature which has had more than a Billion years with the entire Earth's biosphere to tinker with ways to implement pathogenic virulence.
  
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  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
7. Re:umm... by demachina · 2013-06-13 11:45 · Score: 1
  
  "A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed?"
  Actually, no I didn't say anything remotely resembling that. I think I pointed out if you are going to tote up the upside you should probably at least keep it in your mind there is a down side to most technologies. Their cost can be extremely steep, especially when you whistle past the grave yard and ignore them.
  Fossil fuels for example have been a boon to the energy input equation driving civilization, as long as they don't start a run away greenhouse effect and wipe out life as we know it.
  You seem to be a poster child for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
  "Just because the technology makes it more feasible doesn't mean we are reckless enough to flirt with it again"
  Keep telling yourself that, and hope you have good genes.
  "this stuff is not so easy to do accidentally"
  Yea, its so tough there are DIY home geneticists "using the Synthetic Biology Parts Registry to engineer yogurt bacteria to produce prozac"
  
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  @de_machina
8. Re:umm... by tloh · 2013-06-13 14:52 · Score: 1
  
  "A. Are you saying just because a technology can be used for harm it should be abandoned or suppressed?"
  Actually, no I didn't say anything remotely resembling that. I think I pointed out if you are going to tote up the upside you should probably at least keep it in your mind there is a down side to most technologies. Their cost can be extremely steep, especially when you whistle past the grave yard and ignore them.
  Fossil fuels for example have been a boon to the energy input equation driving civilization, as long as they don't start a run away greenhouse effect and wipe out life as we know it.
  You seem to be a poster child for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
  Well, if the point you are trying to make is so superficial, thanks for pointing out the obvious. Every technology is a double edged sword. It doesn't take a genious to realize any tool can be used for good or ill. The story itself simply points out that measurable economic gains have been realized in developing genomic technology. But it would be moronic to take that to mean we are headed for a modern day gold rush where every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a pan can go out and make a mess of things by doing rogue biotech. Throughout human history, Plenty of technological advances have shaped and shifted society in countless ways. You can't deal with it by cowering in fear at the unknown. As a whole, we've adapted and matured. Sure, we will probably make a few mistakes along the way, but we generally learn from those we make and avoid a lot more that the smarter ones among us have already foreseen.
  
  "Just because the technology makes it more feasible doesn't mean we are reckless enough to flirt with it again"
  Keep telling yourself that, and hope you have good genes.
  My genes happen to be excellent, thank you very much. I've benefited enormously from choosing my ancestors wisely. However, I place far greater value in the wisdom of civilization and culture. I don't agree with everything he's published, but I think you can gain a bit of perspective by reading a bit of Steven Pinker. I am inclined to believe eugenics of the kind you are afraid of (ie. wholesale crimes against humanity) are obsolete human endeavors that will go the way of such things as institutionalized slavery, human sacrifices, and other social institutions that we as a society have outgrown. I suppose an argument can be made for some types of control over reproduction that can constitute some form of eugenics. For example, it is now possible for couples to receive genetic counseling and manage the risk(s) of possible congenital defects in their children. Ethical or not? That *is* a intelligent discussion worth having.
  
  "this stuff is not so easy to do accidentally"
  Yea, its so tough there are DIY home geneticists "using the Synthetic Biology Parts Registry to engineer yogurt bacteria to produce prozac"
  As someone who has actually participated in iGEM, I'm afraid you have a grossly skewed understanding of how synthetic biology is done. The link you've provided demonstrates in principle how to do genetic engineering. Its akin to how anyone with enough undergraduate physics can in principle construct a fission bomb. Again, that only happens in the movie reality of Hollywood. But seriously, all participating iGEM teams doing this kind of synthetic biology are heavily supported by sponsorship from industry players and academic entities with money, lab facility, and other vital resources such as the wealth of experience provided by project mentors (usually university professors or Ph.Ds in the field). These are not home gene
  
  --
  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
9. Re:umm... by demachina · 2013-06-14 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  " What do *you* think should be done to address the problem(s) that concerns you? What is your contribution?"
  Not really sure there is anything that can be done. The genie is already out of the bottle. You can pass laws and try to suppress it which will slow beneficial use and do nothing to hamper malevolent use.
  There are already people actively trying to alter organisms in their garage and on kickstarter. I assure you there are nation states like North Korea who have the capacity to do malevolent work. It is also well with in the range of well funded extremist groups.
  Probably the best thing I can contribute is the thing I did contribute. Remind everyone that this technology is extremely powerful, if you are going to dwell on the upside you should at least remain aware of the downside. Since you seem to be actively involved in the field your dismissive attitude towards the dangers makes me more concerned, not less.
  Your assertion that no one will ever try eugenics again is delusional. There are groups and people who are fully committed to it today, all they need is the power to implement it. Hungary for example is already drifting towards an anti semitic neo nazi state in the heart of Europe. As Greece plunges in to an economic abyss, a fascist state is a highly possible outcome. Genomics would have been a boon to the final solution and breeding a master race.
  Claiming your commitment to "wisdom of civilization and culture" while you sling epithets like "redneck" and "skinhead" doesn't put you or your cause in a positive light. Labeling people as "rednecks" indicates you have a tendency to stereotype people the same way eugenicists do.
  
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  @de_machina
10. Re:umm... by tloh · 2013-06-14 07:34 · Score: 1
  
  Being vigilant is not the same as being paranoid. It helps no one for an uninformed voice to be extolling the power and might of some imagined boogie man. In science, many things are possible. Yes I do work in the field. Therefore I feel I have a more realistic view of the situation firmly grounded in what is actually true or achievable. It takes a lot of dedication, discipline, and maturity to do science. That for the most part will weed out a lot of bad elements. On the other hand, you don't need a whole lot of training to build pipe bombs and shrapnel filled pressure cookers. And no one will deny the terror created by events of the Boston marathon. But for you to use the possibility of bio-terrorism as a means to express such a critical perspective to the benefits of investing in genomic research is deeply irresponsible to the enormous good that this emerging field has and will continue to do. Does anyone hold Henry Ford responsible for hundreds of thousands of vehicular deaths? Have the Wright brothers ever been vilified for creating the means to carpet bomb large swaths of civil infrastructure? I would like to think your heart is in the right place. But to be blunt, your foot is firmly planted in your mouth on this subject.
  
  Your assertion that no one will ever try eugenics again is delusional. Hungary for example is already drifting towards an anti semitic neo nazi state in the heart of Europe. As Greece plunges in to an economic abyss, a fascist state is a highly possible outcome. Genomics would have been a boon to the final solution and breeding a master race.
  
  If you believe it is the responsibility of today's genomic research pioneers to fix what is at its heart a social-economic-political problem, *YOU* are delusional. You are not going to abate someone's deep-seated sense of ill will or bigotry by limiting their means to do harm. If you ignore the source of someone's malevolence, no amount of sanctions suppression will stop them from standing against you. That is not the fault of the farmers who grow your food, the mechanics who fix your cars, *OR* the genomics-enabled health care professionals who treats your illness.
  
  Claiming your commitment to "wisdom of civilization and culture" while you sling epithets like "redneck" and "skinhead" doesn't put you or your cause in a positive light. Labeling people as "rednecks" indicates you have a tendency to stereotype people the same way eugenicists do.
  The only indication I can discern is that we have a mismatched sense of humor. I speak lightly of this because I find many of your arguments not very sensible and sometimes downright ridiculous. Yes, I singled out rednecks and skinheads as objects of caricature. I supposed I could have chosen any number of groups who would rather curse the darkness than light a match. Religious fundamentalists, uncompromising US congressional representatives, post-modern literary critics - take your pick.
  
  --
  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
11. Re:umm... by demachina · 2013-06-14 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  OK now you are dismissive AND arrogant. Good work, I am more concerned about you and your field of endeavor than I was when this started.
  The fact that genomic research HAS enabled the ability to engineer organisms that can be extremely dangerous, and can potentially be dangerous to only targetted groups is intensely intertwined with all the beneficial advances in the field. You simply can't separate the two and pretend the dark side isn't there.
  Genomics is simply a very dangeorus field. Its given an ethically challenged species the ability to play god and tamper with life itself. Its just a matter of time until someone will tamper with it and it wont end well.
  "Yes, I singled out rednecks and skinheadsâ¦"
  There wasn't even a tinge of humor in it, not sure why you are claiming there was.
  You are engaging in the very kind of stereotyping and targeting of groups you've been preaching against and dismissing.Â And to pile on you just added a bunch more groups you hold in contempt and would probably just as soon seen wiped off the face of the earth.
  Its the kind of bigotry a well educated, probably liberal, affluent person such as yourself would refuse to accept as bigotry. It doesn't really bother me that you are doing it. It bothers me you don't seem to even realize you are doing it.
  
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  @de_machina
12. Re:umm... by tloh · 2013-06-14 17:20 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sorry to exacerbate your concern. But I am not the least bit sorry about speaking truth to ignorance. Which "targetted groups" are you preemptively defending????? Most serious anthropologists will tell you the notion of "race" as a scientific concept is a myth. There is no clean cut genetic signature that will magically identify an African, an Asian, or a Caucasian, or Homosexual, or Islamist, or Jedi. There is no biological basis for ANY of various ways people may choose to culturally self-identify. It makes for entertaining barroom debates, but to see this issue scientifically as being composed of dark side and light side, black/white, is, in the words of Wolfgang Pauli, not even wrong.
  Honestly, genomics is no more dangerous than cooking. Would you walk up to jacque pepin and tell him he plays God with the power of life and death because bladed tools like the kitchen knife he used to create culinary works of art has also been used as weapons by mobs to carve up innocent women and children ?
  You are not obliged to respect my brand of humor. You have a right to express your own opinion and observe your own convictions. But nor I am not obliged to flatter your preconceptions about me, my chosen profession, or the facts of reality. Your concern for the honor and good name of rednecks, skinheads, religious fundamentalists, uncompromising US congressional representatives, and post-modern literary critics is quixotic but mostly unnecessary. If there is anyone else here on slashdot who thinks I've spoken harshly beyond the boundaries of humor, I will willingly make a public apology for being not nice and hurting others feelings.
  But on the flip side: How is it that *you* feel no remorse or culpability for painting the hard work and achievements of so many genomic research professionals as "the road to hell that is paved with good intentions"? In this day and age of connectedness, that acquaintance or loved one of yours who is (or will be) fighting cancer is fighting with an upper hand thanks to the insights gained from the increasing number of cancer genomes that are being decoded. Would you put their oncologists in the same league as Josef Mengele? Do you honestly believe it is sensible to sound the alarm over some anonymous malcontent of dubious existance who is determined to weaponize cancer biology? The real world is *not* as frightening as you make it out to be. Do you get that despite nuclear proliferation, the first two nuclear attacks have also been the last two? For every two Boston bombers, there are scores of selfless Boston heroes ready to step up and put their own safety and security on the line. Being CERT trained myself, I pray for the same courage if I should ever be called upon. In the world I live in, it *is* those with good intentions who make the difference at the end of the day. What does it say about you that your obsession gravitates toward the harm doers rather than the good doers? Humanity wins. Your bio-terrorist-wannabes loose. I'll wager my life on it. Care to deal?
  
  --
  Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
This is FUD by flayzernax · 2013-06-12 12:01 · Score: -1, Troll

To protect Monsanto from mega lawsuits and ensure lobbying goes into place to make sure all genomes are on 200 year leases.
1. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 12:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, it's more like "please don't stop funding science, specifically this one part."
  
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  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
2. Re:This is FUD by flayzernax · 2013-06-12 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  There is enough economic incentive to do this kind of research anyway that it does not need to rely wholly on grants. And if the majority of this research comes out of grants. I am going to say we have seen better results from NPO's and private charities building food forests and doing experimental farming in places like Africa.
  The majority of articles I have seen in the news leads me to believe that genomic agricultural research is mostly to keep the rich people rich. That includes the Chinese rich along with the Western rich. Two classes of untouchables at this point.
  I still eat what comes out of publics and its no were near as good as what the Swedes eat. I think the American people are getting bamboozled. I don't have sources and citations for you. Just gut feeling and instinct. But its good enough for me. And I know how I feel today compared to how I felt 10 years ago.
3. Re:This is FUD by flayzernax · 2013-06-12 12:32 · Score: 1
  
  *So no net benefit to society as a whole and this article is just a bunch of $$ numbers to make politicians feel good about themselves and middle men university grads.
4. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 12:58 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is about the human genome, you goof, not crops. The money is from medical innovations. RTFA!
  
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5. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 13:23 · Score: 0
  
  Genomics is not genetic engineering, and even if it was, genetic science & technology are not a corporate conspiracy, and furthermore, even Monsanto's patents are not that long (take a wild guess at what ends next year).
  I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight.
6. Re:This is FUD by Mitchell314 · 2013-06-12 13:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Besides better understanding of ourselves, vastly improved drugs, methods to understand and predict inherited diseases, risk factor management, and more effective treatments, what has genomics done for us?
  
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  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
7. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 14:07 · Score: 1
  
  Brought peace?
  (Or, less in line with the joke, understanding of evolution and our place in it. I guess that's sort of like peace, but the Judean People's Front won't have any of it.)
  
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  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
8. Re:This is FUD by ColdWetDog · 2013-06-12 14:15 · Score: 0
  
  Except that my first take on this was what innovations. Yes, a lot of stuff is hyped up, but I've seen precious little utility for genomics in the trenches.
  I think this study is total BS - especially since the methodology is hidden. Sequencing the human genome is interesting, but the real key is sequencing other genomes and comparing them. That's happening with abandon now.
  And we're finally getting a handle on what controls the genome and how all the little pieces fit together. That should yield some better therapies but aside from a few edge cases in cancer treatment, there isn't much out there. And it's not like these cancer treatments have overwhelmingly improved survival - improvements of 20 - 50% are typical. Nothing to sneeze at, but not the Holy Grail.
  
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  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
9. Re:This is FUD by ebno-10db · 2013-06-12 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  The "Judean People's Front" are traitors, not like the People's Front of Judea.
10. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 14:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Woah, woah, what?
  
  Except that my first take on this was what innovations.
  Every single drug and test invented in the past twelve years has been absolutely dependent on understanding the sequence of the human genome and how its components play together. 15 new anti-cancer drugs were approved in 2012 alone, the most bountiful year for FDA approvals since 1995.
  
  Yes, a lot of stuff is hyped up, but I've seen precious little utility for genomics in the trenches.
  Then you've never heard of this? Or this? How much more trench-y do you need?
  
  I think this study is total BS - especially since the methodology is hidden.
  The third page links to the full report, noting that it includes the full methodology behind the study. The word "methodology" is right there in bright blue.
  
  Sequencing the human genome is interesting, but the real key is sequencing other genomes and comparing them. That's happening with abandon now.
  As far as human health is concerned, the primary questions are (a) how do we work? (b) how do the things that interact with us work? and (c) how does our environment affect us? While many model organisms provide excellent snapshots of simpler genomes that we can use to unravel complex mechanisms (like cell division in yeast), comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.
  
  And we're finally getting a handle on what controls the genome and how all the little pieces fit together.
  The biggest recent contributor to that has been ENCODE, which, again, was a direct analysis of human data and did not involve any other species.
  
  That should yield some better therapies but aside from a few edge cases in cancer treatment, there isn't much out there. And it's not like these cancer treatments have overwhelmingly improved survival - improvements of 20 - 50% are typical. Nothing to sneeze at, but not the Holy Grail.
  We picked all the low-hanging fruit like phenylketonuria as soon as it became technologically feasible. Problems like cancer and severe autism are extremely complex, and the only hope we have to tackle them is through an extremely intimate understandinf of the human genome.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
11. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 16:02 · Score: 0
  
  Pardon me, but are you a moron?
12. Re:This is FUD by flayzernax · 2013-06-12 16:16 · Score: 0
  
  Apparently going off on tangent Monsanto wrecked my point. Which is everyday people, most of us, who don't reach elite levels of self importance and education and monetary reward from our "betters" aint seen shit and were still pissed and think this is bullshit.
  Oh well. I'm trying to talk to the wrong crowed here. Let me find another soap box somewhere else.
  I think figuring out genetics and giving the info away because its our motherfucking universities getting grants and doing the research which we all pay for out of all of our pockets would be sweet. By the way. And if that indeed is how this works great.
  Sounds to me like corporate speak for, lets patent 5 more cancer drugs and watch the flies die because they got fucked by their environment, us, industry, bad food, bad lifestyles, didn't have an opportunity because they were just dumb bear drinking humans... not all seeing eye ones...
13. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 16:52 · Score: 0
  
  As far as human health is concerned, the primary questions are (a) how do we work? (b) how do the things that interact with us work? and (c) how does our environment affect us? While many model organisms provide excellent snapshots of simpler genomes that we can use to unravel complex mechanisms (like cell division in yeast), comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.
  *jaw drops*... please tell me you're joking... i'm guessing you're an undergrad and you know just enough to be dangerous (but clearly not enough to have an intelligent opinion). i am particularly amazed by this sentence: "comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens." please, do go on
14. Re:This is FUD by Doubting+Sapien · 2013-06-12 17:01 · Score: 1
  
  I disagree vehemently with GP as he/she is obviously clueless about the subject matter. However, I also take issue with the implication of your snippy reply that crops are somehow divorced from or not associated with progress in genomic research. I assure you, agriculture has not been left behind by recent technological innovations in this area. Many of the underlying tools and techniques jump started by the HGP is routinely used by the research arm of the USDA in the interest of the American public. During a 10 month stint at the Western Regional Research Center in Albany CA, I provided lab support for a protein chemist who studied the nature of food allergens as part of an effort to increase accessibility of nutrition to those with food allergies. For my boss, bioinformatic tools were part of his routine. For me, many of the genomic databases became my friends. Scores of molecular biology experiments I was performing couldn't be done without checking libraries or catalogs such as those at NCBI established in the wake of the HGP. A rising tide raises all boats. We may not have worked directly with the human genome, but we're all beneficiaries just the same.
  
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  ========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
15. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 17:03 · Score: 0
  
  hi, sorry for my last comment. i've calmed down and realized it's ok for people to not know what's up, especially in the world of genomics. lol. for the most part, it sounds like you do know a lot. but actually, comparative genomics and evolution are incredibly useful to medicine. i realize you were just contributing your knowledge to the discussion, and there is nothing wrong with that. since the internet is anonymous it's easy to write a negative reply to someone, but you know... there are always real people behind the mask. and it's great to see people interested in genomics. oh god, what have i done, lol
16. Re:This is FUD by Doubting+Sapien · 2013-06-12 17:08 · Score: 1
  
  Sir, what are your credentials? Instead of making unfounded assumptions about your Interlocutor behind the shield of an anonymous coward, would you care to comment substantively on the subject at hand? I was prepared to rebut GP, but I'd like to hear what you have to say first.
  
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  ========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
17. Re:This is FUD by Doubting+Sapien · 2013-06-12 17:23 · Score: 2
  
  Oh well. I'm trying to talk to the wrong crowed here. Let me find another soap box somewhere else.
  Instead of getting on another soap box and saying anything at all, would you consider stopping to listen to what others are saying? There are many insights being expressed here that are worth thinking about and learning from. If you do have to say something, consider asking an engaging question.
  
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  ========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
18. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 17:30 · Score: 1
  
  Without a doubt that's true, and I'd never propose to debate it—it seems sometimes I spend half my life staring at NCBI and ENSEMBL records; to be honest, I can't think of a corner of the biological sciences that hasn't been affected in some way by the techniques or results of the HGP. That being said, I felt that it was important to ward off flayzernax's discussion of the topic, particularly since it was starting to accrue some supremely lazy mod points.
  
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  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
19. Re:This is FUD by Doubting+Sapien · 2013-06-12 17:46 · Score: 1
  
  ..... comparative genomics really only teaches us about evolution. It's not relevant to medicine, outside of predicting the evolution of pathogens. We're not benefiting human medicine by sequencing, say, red pandas or sea turtles, although these things are certainly important for other reasons. There are occasionally exceptional genomes, like the naked mole rat (immune to cancer), but these are rare.
  Comparative genomics are of enormous importance to the field of cisgenesis/intragenesis. Somewhat inbetween traditional plant breeding and inter-species genetic engineering, intragenics seeks to modify a target organism by transferring genes from related organisms. When applied to agriculture, there are practical savings in resources expended when trying to create new cultivars of existing crops. For more see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17692557
  
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  ========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
20. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 18:01 · Score: 1
  
  My lab works on protozoan parasite genomes in the context of gene network evolution. At a hospital. I'm a doctoral student in computational biology, and my core expertise is sequence analysis. I promise you that I'm well aware of what I said.
  I think you, honestly, misread. My point was that sequencing random organisms is not medically useful; it's focusing on diseases (to divine means of attack) or some carefully-selected model organism (to understand a simplified version of ourselves) that brings us important information. And for the most part, we've got the data on the useful models for humans. No one is rushing out and proposing that we replace S. cerevisiae with some obscure protozoan for studying the cell cycle—that work is done.
  Health research is much more more now concerned with studying the subtleties of the human genome itself, such as with the ENCODE project, and comparisons with other species have shown us that the new information we've garnered from ENCODE—the huge portion of the genome that's transcribed—is not very conserved at the sequence level between species. I think it's very unlikely that the cure for, say, autism, will involve any cross-species comparisons. Of course, there will always be viruses and pathogenic bacteria, as well as fungal, protozoan, and metazoan parasites.
  While certainly there's a lot to do for studying such diseases and their models in depth, those aren't genomes that we're particularly concerned with comparing back to humans, except perhaps to make sure that we can identify a unique drug target that won't harm the patient. That falls under the "evolution of pathogens" part, although perhaps "predicting" was the wrong word.
  So, ultimately, my point is: genome comparisons and evolutionary biology are both absolutely essential to medicine, but not all of them. There are a lot of species out there that we're sequencing now which will never be of medical value, and a lot of stuff we're learning about evolution isn't directly applicable either. No human lives will ever hinge on knowing the composition of the Pelagibacter ubique genome, although the environmental genomics knowledge that resulted has certainly opened our eyes to the importance and complexity of the microbial communities that live in symbiosis with the human body. It doesn't really matter that the extracellular matrix is primarily made up of re-used protein domains that are over a billion years old, although ECM research will one day cure a wide variety of human ailments.
  
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21. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 18:08 · Score: 1
  
  Well, yes... but I did said medicine. I'm pretty sure that falls under "other reasons." :)
  For what it's worth, I'm not really a medical person at heart, even though I'm surrounded by medical stuff constantly. I'd rather navel-gaze at the LUCA or something. But, yeah, comparative genomics is critical in a wide range of natural resources industries; fisheries and forestry in particular are very concerned about defending their stocks from diseases. (At least, that's what the grant in my job description said.)
  
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22. Re:This is FUD by Doubting+Sapien · 2013-06-12 18:31 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks for clarifying your point. I think it was the ".....only teaches us about evolution." bit that threw some of us off as to why comparative genomics should ever be useful to anyone. Not a bad perspective, but maybe a bit awkwardly worded.
  
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23. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 18:51 · Score: 1
  
  Mesmerisingly, no matter how long I spend on a post here, there always seems to be some way to make them clearer in hindsight.
  
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24. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 23:52 · Score: 0
  
  Have any citations for vastly improved drugs and more effective treatments? From my reading there has actually been very little progress in this area over the last few decades.
25. Re:This is FUD by DoctorBonzo · 2013-06-13 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, it's pretty amusing to RTFA and read between the lines. The calculation of ROI from tax dollars is predicated on no other investment from private sources, even though they mention in passing that there's been substantial private input.
  
  I'm all for funding science, but this sort of hype is just propaganda for the proles and members of congress.
26. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 00:50 · Score: 0
  
  paid for by Batelle
27. Re:This is FUD by Mitchell314 · 2013-06-13 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  So your argument boils down to 'Where's my flying car?' with a dash of well poisoning and seasoned with willful ignorance. Well as a different everyday blue collar person, you don't speak for 'us'.
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
28. Re:This is FUD by flayzernax · 2013-06-13 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  I consider this particular battle lost. No point in listening to what I already know... I have heard it all before. I don't necessarily disagree. But I have a different perspective on our 'grant system' and Universities.
29. Re:This is FUD by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 05:51 · Score: 0
  
  Splitters!
30. Re:This is FUD by kirovs · 2013-06-13 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  Comparative genetics/genomics is of HUGE value to medicine and pharmacogenomics. The very essence of of drug discovery is based on selecting animal model and exploring mechanism of action and protein structure in several animals. Having outliers organisms is very important to having power in comparative analysis and accidentally red panda and sea turtle would make nice outliers. To simplify this imagine you need to know if a residues is critical for the function of a protein- you look in sea turtle and you that it is conserved, just as in chimp and rhesus and rodents. Pretty good hint this is an important residue. Samantha, this was a free lesson, but reading some good drug discovery book would be helpful for you. Most biologics are produced in CHO (Chinese hamster ovary cell line). We frequently need to know the sequence of the CHO/hamster genome.
31. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-13 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  While I'm grateful for your comments, I'm afraid you're late to the party; I'd advise you to read some of the subsequent comments. My point was that sequencing biological diversity was not pertinent to medicine. I intended to exclude model systems from my declaration, but that wasn't perfectly clear.
  
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32. Re:This is FUD by kirovs · 2013-06-13 08:56 · Score: 1
  
  And I am saying that it is. You cannot simply exclude drug discovery from medicine now, can you? Or biologics production. No matter how you look at your statement it is simply wrong. And yes- I did read the other comments. So I did not see anyone mention drug discovery. Perhaps you are unaware how drug discovery works, but I have been in the field long enough to tell you what you say is very far from the truth.
33. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-13 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Most of the outliers used as benchmarks that I've seen are frogs, like Xenopus tropicalis. These genomes are generally sufficiently well curated and distant from our own to support arguments about conservation. It's excessive to worry about taking a census from the entire tree of life, particularly when the actual biochemists in charge of drug production don't trust bioinformatics anyway, and ultimately will carry out detailed structural analyses and mutation assays on the final candidate targets.
  A very coarse estimate is sufficient, as evidenced by the huge wealth of drug targets that have been identified even without the consideration of a comprehensive survey of the tree of life. Certainly there is room for refinement, and perhaps you'll see a small improvement in predictive accuracy, but proving the point that the nice big protein sequence alignment figure in the errata of the paper has a bunch of Ws where we have a Y really only requires a dozen or so pertinent examples; the returns are very diminishing. If you have to sequence ten thousand obscure mammals just to find one that has a deletion mutation right where you want it, it's probably not representative.
  
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34. Re:This is FUD by kirovs · 2013-06-13 10:24 · Score: 1
  
  I am sorry, but you do not understand drug discovery process. You also speak like a person who has tons of experience in the field. Which I think is not the case. It will do you good (and to your career) to have more humility and knowledge and make less profound statements. Like this one: "...particularly when the actual biochemists in charge of drug production don't trust bioinformatics anyway,..." Maybe there are pharma companies where biochemists do not work with bioinformaticians. The ones I am aware of definitely go the other way.
35. Re:This is FUD by csirac · 2013-06-13 16:52 · Score: 1
  
  I think you, honestly, misread. My point was that sequencing random organisms is not medically useful; it's focusing on diseases (to divine means of attack) or some carefully-selected model organism (to understand a simplified version of ourselves) that brings us important information.
  I have to say that as somebody tangentially involved in evolutionary biology research (boring computational stuff), I appreciate and agree with most of your input in this discussion, however it has to be said that you're being a bit too dismissive of studies on non-human, non-model species. There is much to be learned about some very fundamental questions in molecular biology, not all of which might necessarily be answered by studying in-bred lab rats. It's my belief there is a mountain of data (sadly of poor quality either in controls/methods or provenance/curation) which could lead to questions and further studies of these "alien" species (Sea slugs, insects, plants) which have answers to important, basic fundamentals which wouldn't be as obvious by sticking to the utter desert of homogeneous specimens which medical research relies upon today.
  That's not to say in-bred lab rats are the wrong tool for the job, but if that's all we're limited to, our discoveries will be similarly limited.
36. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-13 18:29 · Score: 1
  
  I'm kinda using a more flexible definition of model organism here; if a sea slug provides a lot of information about some particular system then it should be called a model too. I really wanted to say that sequencing for diversity's sake, like ColdWetDog was implying, gives us very diminishing returns. When it comes to drug design, the amount of information that can be garnered from analysing large chunks of the tree of life falls off fairly quickly, despite how pretty the heat maps may look. A couple dozen nearby genomes that say (for example) a given residue is essential is not generally going to be greatly improved by doing the same comparison with a thousand—especially when the whole thing's going to be tested biochemically anyway. (Despite how kirovs seems pretty upset with me for saying this.)
  
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37. Re:This is FUD by csirac · 2013-06-23 00:40 · Score: 1
  
  That's cool. I understand the original article is about human genome research, but I still consider that you're thinking rather narrowly - but what do I know, so far my involvement in bioinformatics has only been accidental, I'm an engineer really. But just as an anecdote, I worked with a couple of unrelated teams - sponsored by pharma companies - to do basic "alpha taxonomy" and biology research on scientifically-neglected organsims (they're not cute or furry!). They make themselves out of (or secrete) interesting compounds potentially useful for cancer treatments. But because the biology/population dynamics of these things are so poorly understood, simply knowing where the populations exist, how diverse these populations are (sometimes "same species" individuals are chemically different in important ways - Due to life cycle? Are they just different forms of the same species? Or do the taxonomists need to split the species up? How are they interbreeding? What role does the compound of interest play in them? Etc) makes repeatability of these chemical assays on subsequent indviduals really quite difficult.
  And in any case, I'm sure you're aware of all the interesting arguments for biosecurity/invasive species/food security etc... but that's getting off topic :)
38. Re:This is FUD by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-23 16:49 · Score: 1
  
  The protozoan parasite work my lab does spawned out of stuff that was once like that. The genus Plasmodium has over two hundred species, and is often said to have one species for every worthwhile animal in Africa (although in truth there's a lot of overlap, and about a dozen of them can attack humans.)
  In defence of my original and somewhat-creaky post, I'd file that under the rare "exceptional genomes" category. Such findings may seem immense, but compared to the unbelievable scale of the whole tree of life, they're pretty exotic. And I'd still contend that, whether counting patents, diseases, or mutations, most of the useful information can be gleaned directly from the organisms we've already studied to death.
  And on that last off-topic note: bizarrely, Canada Geese are one of the numerous invasive species in New Zealand.
  
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Wow! by Etherwalk · 2013-06-12 12:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Industry Group claims it is useful in own report, film at eleven.
1. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  And your evidence that their figures are incorrect or misleading is where exactly?
2. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 12:53 · Score: 0
  
  And GP said figures were incorrect or misleading where, exactly?
3. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 13:49 · Score: 0
  
  It's a clear implication of the post. Are retarded or just being intentional dense?
4. Re:Wow! by interkin3tic · 2013-06-12 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  It kind of has to. We're evidently too stupid to realize it on our own. We spent 3 billion on the human genome project and it's going to be vital to the eventual cure for cancer. We spend 6 billion PER SUBMARINE to fight... I dunno, terrorists with scuba gear? And we're still cutting the NIH budget.
  
  Headline should be "Industry group says 'You know, what, fuck y'all missile-riding cowboys. See you in hell.'"
5. Re:Wow! by OhANameWhatName · 2013-06-12 16:28 · Score: 1
  
  film at eleven
  Wins 12 Oscars
of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-12 12:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think public funding of basic research is one of the few areas where the federal government is justified in spending significant amounts of money.
But "generating economic impact" is a useless measure; the federal government could create a trillion dollars of economic impact by forcing everybody to burn down their houses or by simply forcing everybody to pay twice as much for their health care (well, they are trying the latter), but we wouldn't be better off as a result.
1. Re:of course... by GodfatherofSoul · 2013-06-12 12:38 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I was with you until the Obamacare crack. Healthcare costs have been skyrocketing for 30 years, now if anyone's premium goes up a dollar that's because of Obamacare? Costs aren't going down, but at least the rate they're growing has started slowing down.
  
  --
  I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
2. Re:of course... by ranton · 2013-06-12 13:26 · Score: 1
  
  "Generating economic impact" is a very useful measure. It is quite possibly the best measure of any government program other than social safety nets.
  
  the federal government could create a trillion dollars of economic impact by forcing everybody to burn down their houses or by simply forcing everybody to pay twice as much for their health care
  
  They said economic impact not economic activity. If they burned every house down and rebuilt every one of them, the net economic impact of spending trillions of dollars would be $0. Well, it would be a little positive because the houses would be nicer, but definetly not worth the money spent.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
3. Re:of course... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-12 13:32 · Score: 1
  
  Then look at the report—there're plenty of more specific measures. Six billion dollars in federal and state tax revenue, 293 billion dollars in paid salaries, and 277,000 highly-skilled jobs created or supported. The trillion-dollar figure isn't super sensical at first glance, but there are somewhat more meaningful figures in there.
  
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4. Re:of course... by ebno-10db · 2013-06-12 14:06 · Score: 2
  
  Healthcare costs have been skyrocketing for 30 years, now if anyone's premium goes up a dollar that's because of Obamacare?
  No, but Obamacare does amazingly little to control costs. Obama started by giving pharma and med insurance companies what they wanted. There's a reason why the insurance stocks went up after it passed - what company has a problem with guaranteed customers? A public option would have given them a run for their money, and with pharma the collective bargaining power of 308M people could do something about prices. Some of the cost containment claimed is absurd. It limits the medical loss ratio, to a lower ratio (more for the insurance companies) than what they have now! And the pre-Obamacare MLR is lower than what they had ten years ago. I've believed in universal health care for decades, but I'm not sure we can afford Obama and congress kissing corporate butt like this.
5. Re:of course... by ebno-10db · 2013-06-12 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  "Generating economic impact" is a very useful measure.
  That'd be true if it could actually be measured.
6. Re:of course... by ebno-10db · 2013-06-12 14:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's not hard to pull number out of one's posterior, which is what these "economic impact" studies do.
7. Re:of course... by ColdWetDog · 2013-06-12 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  You're correct. Obama care is going to save precious little money. What it might do is increase the number of people who are covered with insurance. But that requires the states to tag along and pay some money themselves. Not a very popular concept these days. It might decrease the rate of increase in medical costs - whoopedo. It will create another cottage industry of consultants trying to explain the thousands of pages of rules and regs to everyone else.
  It probably was the best anyone could do which is a damning insight into the state of this country's political and economic systems. Obama should have aborted the damaged fetus, but I suspect he was too emotionally attached to it. It's going to need a long period of rehab before it becomes a useful citizen.
  
  --
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8. Re:of course... by techno-vampire · 2013-06-12 16:02 · Score: 1
  
  It will create another cottage industry of consultants trying to explain the thousands of pages of rules and regs to everyone else.
  
  I don't know if Obamacare is good or bad, but I'm very, very concerned about the way it was written and passed: one, big, complex bill that was rammed through Congress before anybody except the authors had had a chance to read it, let alone understand it. Much better would have been a series of bills dealing with different aspects of the reform, with each one short enough to be read, understood and debated. I won't say that there are any nasty surprises lurking in the bill, but I can't say that there aren't, because it's so long, complex and unexplained. About all I can do is be glad that I get my health care from the VA, so I probably won't be affected by it one way or the other.
  
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9. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-12 19:40 · Score: 1
  
  Many people are looking at drastic increases in states where Obamacare is being implemented, far higher than traditional growth, in part because they are forced to buy coverage they don't want and they don't need. Obamacare promised to rein in the the growth of health care costs and insurance premiums, and it is obviously a failure.
  If you're going to implement European-style health insurance coverage, you must implement European-style cost controls, which usually involve strict limits on what insurance companies can charge, how much doctors earn, how hospitals are run, and what conditions are treated or not treated. Obama didn't do that, instead he handed a boondoggle to the insurance companies and private corporations and has the consumer pay for it, under the pretext of doing what other "civilized countries" do.
10. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-12 19:47 · Score: 1
  
  They said economic impact not economic activity. If they burned every house down and rebuilt every one of them, the net economic impact of spending trillions of dollars would be $0
  "Economic impact" is an ambiguous weasel-word, and the thing they did not say was "economic gain".
  In the case of people burning down their houses, you could actually subtract the losses from the gains, but the way these calculations are done, you'd still end up with nominal big overall gains, because the same dollar is counted many times in these calculations. Without that, you couldn't get such huge multipliers.
  For most other forms of government activity, it's worse: the losses can't even be accounted for because they tend occur as externalities or opportunity costs.
11. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-12 19:53 · Score: 1
  
  293 billion dollars in paid salaries, and 277,000 highly-skilled jobs created or supported.
  That's a plus only if these people are doing something useful. Otherwise, the government is taking 277000 highly skilled workers and wasting their talent on meaningless work, and the US government just sucked a trillion dollars in opportunity cost out of the economy.
  That's why it's true to say that this is "economic impact", but nobody knows whether it's an actual gain or loss.
12. Re:of course... by ranton · 2013-06-13 01:30 · Score: 1
  
  "Economic impact" is an ambiguous weasel-word, and the thing they did not say was "economic gain".
  A positive economic impact is an economic gain. A negative economic impact is an economic loss. I really don't think anyone should fault the writers of this paper for assuming this was obvious.
  
  In the case of people burning down their houses, you could actually subtract the losses from the gains, but the way these calculations are done, you'd still end up with nominal big overall gains, because the same dollar is counted many times in these calculations. Without that, you couldn't get such huge multipliers.
  They do mention in the TFA that efforts were made to not count effects more than once when calculating cumulative effects. But obviously there are going to be huge multipliers when you are talking about basic research. That is the reason there has been more economic advance in the past two hundred years than there was in all of human history before it. Scientific advances build on each other in a very non-linear way.
  
  For most other forms of government activity, it's worse: the losses can't even be accounted for because they tend occur as externalities or opportunity costs.
  I do agree that government figures are almost always distorted because they do not account for opportunity costs. It is a shameful practice that makes almost any figures coming from the government meaningless, whether they are talking about the true cost of our last two wars or the true cost of Obamacare. I am not sure if this study takes into account opportunity costs, but even if they didn't the study shows such a large return on investment that I doubt opportunity costs would erase it.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
13. Re:of course... by GoogleShill · 2013-06-13 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  No, right-wing news hosts are saying that. The only people who will pay more are companies who are only now required to provide insurance to their employees and therefore have a 100% increase in healthcare costs.
  My empirical evidence was in the form of a rebate from United Healthcare because they exceeded the premium cap mandated by the ACA. That's right, money back and a lower premium because of Obamacare.
14. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-13 04:14 · Score: 1
  
  A positive economic impact is an economic gain. A negative economic impact is an economic loss. I really don't think anyone should fault the writers of this paper for assuming this was obvious.
  The writers didn't say "positive economic impact", they said "economic impact", likely because they can't actually make a good case that the impact is entirely positive.
  
  I am not sure if this study takes into account opportunity costs, but even if they didn't the study shows such a large return on investment that I doubt opportunity costs would erase it.
  That's why the study is so manipulative: they throw a lot of big numbers at you and hope that you'll draw that conclusion. What you really should be concluding is that they are trying to bamboozle you with these big numbers because they don't really have any more concrete evidence that their spending was worth it.
  Furthermore, "opportunity cost" also means whether the spending was needed at all. Was it really rational for the US government to engage in a race with a private company to sequence the human genome? Was it rational to do the sequencing using really expensive devices, when much lower cost sequencing would have been available a few years later anyway? Is NIH the right way of distributing this money? If the multiplier really is this high, why wouldn't private companies have a huge incentive to do this research without public funding? The whole analysis makes no sense.
  As I was saying before, I think spending federal tax dollars on research is a good thing and we should increase it. But "studies" like this suggest that there is something wrong with the way the money is spent, and the people doing the spending know it.
15. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-13 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  No, right-wing news hosts are saying that.
  Take off your partisan glasses and face reality:
  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/04/obamacare-rate-shock-how-big-is-it-does-it-matter.html
  
  The only people who will pay more are companies who are only now required to provide insurance to their employees and therefore have a 100% increase in healthcare costs.
  That's simply false. Rates are going up for many people.
  Furthermore, the businesses that have a "100% increase in healthcare costs" will pass that on to consumers and employees, and will reduce staff to make ends meet.
16. Re:of course... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-13 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  Given that a lot of the products of this work involve expensive drugs which both save lives and break banks, it's impossible to say for certain, although as I have a lot of colleagues in that pool I can say with some authority that they certainly think it's productive.
  
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17. Re:of course... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  I think my cat has more authority and credibility than you.
18. Re:of course... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-06-13 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure you think lots of things that make you special and unique.
  
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19. Re:of course... by GoogleShill · 2013-06-13 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  Take off your partisan glasses and face reality:
  Uh, what? You start out with a bogus Obamacare dig, then you link an article which shows no evidence, just some numbers that /some/ economists are expecting people to pay. And still those numbers are far less than what many people are paying now. For example, my friend got laid off and was paying $1800/mo to cover his wife and newborn through COBRA. That's roughly 50% of the average household gross income spent directly on insurance.
  I'm basing my viewpoint on real evidence, not the BS estimates you see all over the news. I'm mid-30's, healthy and working for a small company. Exactly the type of person who is "estimated" to pay more, and yet, I'm paying less.
  
  Furthermore, the businesses that have a "100% increase in healthcare costs" will pass that on to consumers and employees, and will reduce staff to make ends meet.
  If a company is too greedy to give health benefits to it's employees, then in my opinion, they deserve to fail. We're not talking about mom and pop shops, these are companies with more than 50 full-time employees. It also affects the entire market, so competitors all have to adjust and it works itself out.
20. Re:of course... by ranton · 2013-06-13 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  The report could be complete bunk, but I do have issues with a few of your statements.
  
  Was it really rational for the US government to engage in a race with a private company to sequence the human genome?
  
  It was a very good thing because the Celera Corporation made every effort to keep their data private and out of GenBank. The results of the genome project would have been far less beneficial if there wasn't significant pressure from the DOE/NIH funded research. Celera did complete their work at a fraction of the cost the public research, but this was a project that was far too important to allow a single company to control the results.
  
  Was it rational to do the sequencing using really expensive devices, when much lower cost sequencing would have been available a few years later anyway?
  You can always make this rationalization. There will always be something better and cheaper down the line. It is easy to see that in hindsight they could have saved a couple billion dollars by waiting a few years, but the benefit is so large that a couple billion dollars is peanuts by comparison.
  
  If the multiplier really is this high, why wouldn't private companies have a huge incentive to do this research without public funding?
  
  Even if the multiplier is this high, it doesn't mean that a single company would get all of the benefits. For the government, they don't care about that. Perhaps in this case the benefit only became so great because the results were open and not controlled by an organization whose goal was profit. If Celera had been able to charge huge fees to any public research organization there may have been a lot less research, and therefore far less gains.
  
  --
  -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
21. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-13 07:26 · Score: 1
  
  You can always make this rationalization. There will always be something better and cheaper down the line. It is easy to see that in hindsight they could have saved a couple billion dollars by waiting a few years, but the benefit is so large that a couple billion dollars is peanuts by comparison.
  In fact, many people at the time thought that the human genome project was premature, and that the money would have been better spent on other programs until the cost of sequencing had come down. I see little reason to revise that opinion in hindsight.
  
  Even if the multiplier is this high, it doesn't mean that a single company would get all of the benefits.
  Not at all; lots of companies would have done the sequencing and made the data available at ever cheaper prices, until a few years later, the government would have redone the whole thing for a negligible amount of money.
22. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-13 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, what? You start out with a bogus Obamacare dig, then you link an article which shows no evidence
  The article gives real rates for actual payers. You can check them yourself if you like.
  
  I'm basing my viewpoint on real evidence, not the BS estimates you see all over the news. I'm mid-30's, healthy and working for a small company. Exactly the type of person who is "estimated" to pay more, and yet, I'm paying less.
  That means nothing. You may simply have been on an uncompetitive rate plan or have had too much coverage. (Given how financially inexperienced you seem to be, that is actually likely.)
  
  We're not talking about mom and pop shops, these are companies with more than 50 full-time employees. It also affects the entire market, so competitors all have to adjust and it works itself out.
  Yes, it will work itself out: companies will fire employees, automate more, and move jobs overseas, where employees have full health care benefits at a fraction of the cost of Obamacare.
23. Re:of course... by GoogleShill · 2013-06-13 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  The article gives real rates for actual payers. You can check them yourself if you like.
  That means nothing. You may simply have been on an uncompetitive rate plan or have had too much coverage. (Given how financially inexperienced you seem to be, that is actually likely.)
  Yes, my lower premiums are "uncompetitive", and my HDHP is too much coverage. Given that you've based your arguments solely on unsubstantiated numbers and lies, I can only imagine how "experienced" you must be. I posted fact, you posted lies.
  
  Yes, it will work itself out: companies will fire employees, automate more, and move jobs overseas, where employees have full health care benefits at a fraction of the cost of Obamacare.
  Ah, there it is. OMG THE SKY IS FALLING DUE TO OBAMACARE!!!11 Mindless drivel from yet another internet troll.
24. Re:of course... by stenvar · 2013-06-13 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  I posted fact, you posted lies.
  You posted an anecdote, I posted news stories from reputable sources.
  
  OMG THE SKY IS FALLING DUE TO OBAMACARE!!!
  The sky isn't falling, it's just one long period of unemployment and economic malaise due to an incompetent president. Hopefully, the next one will be better.
25. Re:of course... by GoogleShill · 2013-06-13 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  You posted an anecdote, I posted news stories from reputable sources.
  I guess somehow in your little mind, opinions from people who happen to agree with your political disposition are more important than real evidence. Do you also believe in Santa Clause?
  
  The sky isn't falling, it's just one long period of unemployment and economic malaise due to an incompetent president. Hopefully, the next one will be better.
  Again with the lies! Do you realize that unemployment and the deficit are actually down since your sub-average IQ (R)-tard president was finally outed? Probably not, since you actually believe the ACA will destroy the economy.
26. Re:of course... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 14:21 · Score: 0
  
  I guess somehow in your little mind, opinions from people who happen to agree with your political disposition are more important than real evidence. Do you also believe in Santa Clause?
  Real evidence is what's published and independently verifiable, not what some troll like you posts on the Internet.
  
  Again with the lies! Do you realize that unemployment and the deficit are actually down since your sub-average IQ (R)-tard president was finally outed? Probably not, since you actually believe the ACA will destroy the economy.
  I didn't vote for Bush, and I did vote for Obama. But, you know, smart people admit when they made a mistake, and voting for Obama clearly was a mistake because the guy has turned out to be an even greater idiot than Bush.
27. Re:of course... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-14 01:06 · Score: 0
  
  Real evidence is what's published and independently verifiable, not what some troll like you posts on the Internet.
  Says the anonymous internet troll. This isn't a fucking scientific theory, these are facts. Yes, UHC provided rebates and lower premiums because of the ACA.
  
  I didn't vote for Bush, and I did vote for Obama. But, you know, smart people admit when they made a mistake, and voting for Obama clearly was a mistake because the guy has turned out to be an even greater idiot than Bush.
  You think that because you're an idiot. Things are much better now than they were during the economic free-fall that Bush put us through.
The foul smells emanating from my ass... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 12:28 · Score: 1, Funny

The foul smells emanating from my ass have boosted the economy by $500 million through increased sales of air freshners!
1. Re:The foul smells emanating from my ass... by flayzernax · 2013-06-12 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  Amen the trolls are finally right. Lol.
2. Re:The foul smells emanating from my ass... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 13:22 · Score: -1
  
  The foul smells emanating from my ass have boosted the economy by $500 million through increased sales of air freshners!
  I think the report may have been talking about POSITIVE impact.
Slow economy? Blame President McCain by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 12:35 · Score: 0

If President McCain hadn't vetoed that economic stimulus bill, we wouldn't have a slow economy.
Good to hear $$ by pitbull+puppies · 2013-06-12 12:41 · Score: 0

Hopefully are economy gets back on track where we are used to seing it ;) http://www.americanbullypitbullpuppies.com/
Oh what an amazing thing! by OhANameWhatName · 2013-06-12 12:43 · Score: 1

An industry advocacy group discovered that their industry is really important to the US economy! I wonder how much it would have cost for them to discover that their industry is nowhere near as important as they think?
This is biomedical, not agricultural by ranton · 2013-06-12 13:17 · Score: 3, Informative

This has nothing to do with Monsanto. This is about medical research that has been boosted by advances such as mapping the human genome.

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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Cunundrum by EzInKy · 2013-06-12 13:19 · Score: 2

Quite a cunundrum, isn't it? Most everyone wants to see science advance, most everyone wants everyone to benefit from those scientific advances. How best to do this by encouraging both research and sharing? Still not sure a 20yr monopoly is the best method, but so far have seen very few viable alternatives presented that serve both the benefactors and benefactees.

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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
1. Re:Cunundrum by ebno-10db · 2013-06-12 14:12 · Score: 1
  
  Still not sure a 20yr monopoly is the best method, but so far have seen very few viable alternatives presented that serve both the benefactors and benefactees.
  It's called public funding - scientific progress is a public good. As for the 20yr monopolies, those are supposed to cover inventions, not scientific discoveries.
2. Re:Cunundrum by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 20:29 · Score: 0
  
  I for one would like to see science decline. JESUS DOESN'T APPROVE SCIENCE!
3. Re:Cunundrum by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 03:35 · Score: 0
  
  he does approve of engineering though. Kind of hard to be a carpenter and not approve of engineering.
  He turned wood into chair, and the chair was good, no wobbly legs or uncomfortable placing.
Where are the jobs? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 13:33 · Score: 0

OK, $31 billion contributed to the U.S. gross national product is a good thing.
But this results in only 152,000 jobs???
1. Re:Where are the jobs? by Mitchell314 · 2013-06-12 15:16 · Score: 2
  
  Just back of the envelope mental math, but at $60,000 per worker (factoring benefits, training, travel, etc), that's roughly $9 billion, which doesn't seem terribly off. Add double that for supplies and equipment the workers come in contact with, so 9 + 18 = 27, which is in the same ballpark as the $31 billion. An immediate red flag suggesting BS is when you're around 50% or more away, ie the dollar number is near or greater than $40 billion or the job number is near less than ~100,000.
  
  The medical/chemical field is a hot field with a lot of high salary jobs. A different industry will have different numbers.
  
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  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
That is the worst story tag I've seen in a while by damn_registrars · 2013-06-12 13:35 · Score: 1

Someone has manged to tag this "wtfisgenomics". Really, people? I didn't know there were that many slashdot readers who were still stuck in 1994.

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Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Re:That is the worst story tag I've seen in a whil by Mitchell314 · 2013-06-12 13:58 · Score: 2

Obviously genomics is the study of gnome genealogies. Come one people, this is basic english. :P

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I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
People paying to stay alive longer by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 14:00 · Score: 0

Ultimately, this is about people paying to stay alive longer. I guess a real number, is that people can last longer before retirement. I guess it also makes treatment of people under the death panel age, cheaper.
We have not faced the possibility of keeping a person alive and functioning for a very long time, with the only limitation being cost. Other nations have death panels, and they keep costs down. What will America choose to do?
Re:That is the worst story tag I've seen in a whil by damn_registrars · 2013-06-12 14:19 · Score: 2

Obviously genomics is the study of gnome genealogies
Yes, I'm quite sure that is what ... oh, what was that pesky search engine called ... told me. Damnit infoseek!

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Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Bias reflects reliability, not accuracy by Etherwalk · 2013-06-12 14:30 · Score: 1

It's a clear implication of the post. Are retarded or just being intentional dense?
(1) Not at all, it is indicated the report is biased and less reliable than an unbiased report. Whether it is accurate is an entirely different question than whether it is biased. An alleged murderer may have his mother testify that he was home with her at the time of the murder, for example, and her testimony is biased and therefore less reliable regardless of whether it is accurate.
(2) Ad hominem attacks are not nerdly.
/.'s most relentlessly anti-science thread yet/ by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 15:35 · Score: 0

I've been on slashdot over a decade. I've seen young-earth creationists, anti-vaxers, global warming deniers, libertarians, and intelligent design pushers. This is the first thread where I've burned through 10 mod points down moderating the willfully ignorant science haters. Here's a news flash: those of us who do science have to have IP protection. If we don't, we don't get paid. We don't get paid, we don't do science, and scientific advances come to a screeching halt. This used to be news for nerds, stuff that matters. I guess news for nerds has degenerated to the point where if it isn't about playing xbox or some other mainstream anti-education anti-intelligence bilge slashdot is incapable of having intelligent conversation. The few of you who are correcting these idiots I wish the best, but I've just about had it.
$141 in economic output per dollar invested by EdmundSS · 2013-06-12 15:38 · Score: 1

If the returns are really as great as they want you to believe (*), then private industry will be rushing in. The federal seed money has done its job and no more is needed. Voila!
(*) Except that the numbers they've published are gross, and it's the net that counts.
1. Re:$141 in economic output per dollar invested by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 22:35 · Score: 0
  
  If the returns are really as great as they want you to believe (*), then private industry will be rushing in.
  Not if the benefits are spread out over a large part of society while the investors are left holding the bill. That's perfectly acceptable for government research, but not for private industry.
2. Re:$141 in economic output per dollar invested by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-06-12 23:47 · Score: 1
  
  165,000 people isn't that large as big corporations go. If this is generating a job or two in supermarkets all over the place, I will be surprised.
  As private industry is investing tons, it would be wrong to assume these jobs are a consequence of government spending anyway. Perhaps they would spend even more if they weren't taxed so heavily. Perhaps they would spend even more if famous politicians weren't running around screaming about their "unconscionable profits".
  
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  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Why pay for basic research by rsilvergun · 2013-06-12 16:26 · Score: 1

When you can have it paid for by the gov't. When will people learn that the rich always have socialism. The only question is will everyone else have it.

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Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Funny by dorpus · 2013-06-12 17:04 · Score: 1

Yes, I've followed the boom of "bioinformatics" majors and their spectacular inability to get jobs. I've been to academic conferences that talked big about the promise of genomics, never mind all the unemployed PhDs scurrying around looking for jobs. I have read academic journals that talked big about the job prospects of such students, quoting an exceptional graduate that managed to get an assistant professorship somewhere. When I asked the writer about other graduates, they acknowledged that they had only interviewed that one student, and have no idea about how other graduates did. Why yes, "genomic medicine" has produced its laughable failures such as Bi-dil, along with other new age "biotech" companies that make up whatever random DNA and sell the "genome data" to customers, telling them that they are at risk for whatever random diseases. If you test a sugar pill on enough "ethnic groups", it will appear successful in at least one of them. And so it goes for billions of random DNA letters -- one can use the data to prove anything they like. Accordingly, real academics do not take genetics seriously.
1. Re:Funny by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-12 22:43 · Score: 0
  
  PhD students who wish to continue doing research are mostly unemployed in most fields. That's the natural end-state of academia, since a professor can graduate many PhD students over his career yet he only leaves a single job opening when he retires. This natural state can only be momentarily escaped during periods where funding for research is growing tremendously, since that opens many new positions during that time. We are not in such a situation now, hence the unemployment. What's really bad is that many PhDs are so focused on staying in academia and doing research that they end up accepting teaching positions that leave them with very little time for research, thus wasting highly qualified people on activities that they are not ideally suited for. But I'm just responding to a troll, aren't I, given this statement:
  
  Accordingly, real academics do not take genetics seriously.
Genetics? by rioki · 2013-06-12 20:15 · Score: 1

Wait was this stuff not called genetics, like two seconds ago? Whats the difference between genetics and genomics?
I work with a cancer genomics group... by virgnarus · 2013-06-13 01:16 · Score: 1

Genomics booming? News to me. If anything, we've only been feeling a vast reduction in grant approval lately. We're lucky to even get the expected 1 out of 15 submissions approved. The diabetes genomic group we work with is also feeling the heat.
That's because they want to get in on the slaves by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 02:10 · Score: 0

You know, ever since they made their planned move to patent human genetics and all that?
Bad poster. by azav · 2013-06-13 02:49 · Score: 1

It's "Genomics' Impact on US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion".
Without the apostrophe after the s, Genomics has no relationship to the US economy, since it's not possessive. Come on. This is fourth grade English.

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- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...