4 ms·
I’ve also done 23andme and am open about my data. I can think of about 3 negative outcomes (maybe insurance problems that could occur without regulation; family
by breck 8y ago
I’ve also done 23andme and am open about my data. I can think of about 3 negative outcomes (maybe insurance problems that could occur without regulation; family privacy issues if someone wanted to track you or a family member down; annoying advertising), and about 1,000 positive outcomes (contributing data to help cure cancer, predict disease susceptibility, drug response, improve general health and wellness, et cetera...).
I think the pros far outweigh the cons.
Sure, 23andme and GSK and others will get richer off this but so what—they are doing something good.
- paxy 8y agoPlus the negative effects need to be mitigated by legislation (and to a great extent already are) rather than secrecy.
- ryanisnan 8y agoOh come on, don't straw man the actual issues. Nobody is worried about GSK getting rich, but are worried about actual issues like insurance discrimination, loss of privacy, loss of control, etc. I think few people would argue against the benefits of genetic testing, but just because it's a great thing doesn't mean that being complacent around adjacent shady business transactions is the right approach. You can be for it, but also for privacy, protection against insurance discrimination, etc. at the same time.
- Karunamon 8y agoInsurance discrimination is explicitly prohibited by law, and your genetic makeup is about the least private and controllable thing about you since you leave bits of it everywhere you go whether you want to or not.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIf I cared about privacy I wouldn’t have had 23andme and the Personal Genome Project do my genotyping. While it may affect me negatively in the future, the net positive (in aggregate with all participants) will exceed that negative value. I’m dead in the long run regardless, and would rather find every way I can be impactful with the time I have left, even in these small ways.
- whatshisface 8y agoHave you considered the impact on your relatives and descendants? They may care more about their privacy than you care about yours, and when you get sequenced they don't have a choice.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoI have considered the ethical issues. Not my problem, it’s my DNA.
- whatshisface 8y agoThe problem is, it's also theirs. Using the insurance example, even if you live in a country with socialized healthcare someone down or across the line from you may not. Indeed, you would be putting them at risk for all of the bad things to do with DNA that will be or were invented from fifty years ago until the computers forget your genome, without their consent, and unless they received a copy of your results without their benefit!
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIt’s a legitimate concern that requires constant vigilance of an educated and engaged electorate. Otherwise we’ll end up paralyzed with anxiety of what if vs progress.
- ryanisnan 8y agoThe two things should not be mutually exclusive (privacy and technological advancement). Why do you lay over and just accept that it has to be that way?
- Retric 8y agoPlenty of other risks. Once you get into the X million+ sample ranges false positives for paternity tests or criminal cases become likely. 10 million tests vs 10 million person database means 1 in 10 trillion false positives happen 10 times.
- throwawaymath 8y agoWhy couldn't you run those tests several times?
- Retric 8y agoThese are not false positives, because you ran the test wrong. Suppose a male with red hair, green eyes, and AB+ blood actually has those traits they are just not enough to unlikely identify someone. Adding more genetic traits on it's own is not enough for example you have identical twin or even triplet separated at birth. The core issue is DNA marks are not independent though people often assume they are.
- mcculley 8y agoSociety will have to adapt to a better understanding that this is true. Keeping one’s DNA secret is not going to be a useful defense against ignorance of how DNA works.
- Retric 8y agoWorked for the last 10,000+ years and still works today. Sure, at some point in the future it might get fixed or always fail, but until then you need to deal with today not some mythical perfect future.
- mcculley 8y agoThe last 10,000+ years has not been static from my perspective. Blood testing came along. Limited DNA testing came along after that. Perfect DNA testing will be here soon. The technology won't care how you feel about it being used. I'm not imagining a mythical perfect future. I'm imagining a very real future that we can't avoid and need to deal with more pragmatically.
- mikec3010 8y agoAnother way they could abuse this would be to find some loosely genetic-based "treatment" that just so happens to require expensive DNA tests. I'm sure it's more profitable to use the universal fear of cancer to sell tests than it is to actually attack cancerous cells directly.