Personal genetic testing?

[blessingx]

Okay, I may have a discount opportunity to do basically a personal genome service, including background and health related profiling. Even discounted it's not cheap and the bigger issue is of some future government/insurance use of said information. A few years ago this would have been less a concern, but we've all seen how personal privacy can change, even retroactively. So while I think it could be quite interesting and may have some large health advantages down the road, I also don't trust that personal information protected now (including through state laws here in CA), will remain so should an enterprising politician, general drum beat for corporate healthcare protection, or even incompetent IT department get involved ten years down the line.

Course prostate cancer scares me more.

There are so many questions like even if an insurance company isn't allowed to ask, does simply knowing a genetic predisposition require disclosure on insurance forms (and legal ramifications if future treatment is necessary when pre-existing knowledge is documented)? Will it likely in the future?

Any thoughts?

BTW, should you want more information I just found this Wired article.

 

[polishpower]

Hope this helps. Heard about the bill finally getting on it's way a few days ago. Don't know if it's in this article(first I found), but the same senator(Coburn is his name I think) who stalled this, is also fudging up some breast cancer research bill.

 

[BetaLyr]

I read that in Wired a few months back, and it instantly reminded me of that Scrubs episode with the hypochondriac and the full body scan.. I completely agree with what Dr. Cox said in that episode, that a full body scan would completely mess with even a sane person's mind.
If I had the chance to know, I wouldn't, because it just make me obsess with something that might happen happen in the future just because my genes say so (not even "say so," more like "suggest so").
Anyway, most aspects regarding genetic predisposition are still not definitive and there are still studies being conducted.

 

[blessingx]

Interestingly they kinda address the body scan "too much noise and not enough signal" issues in the Wired article. Certainly I'd react differently to a 12% increase in risk than to a big black dot.

Also while they may miss markers, supposedly analysis will be updated going forward with the markers they catalog. So conceivably it would be the an output of available current understanding and the data for future analysis.

And thanks for the link polishpower. Reason number 518 to roll your eyes at Ron Paul.

 

[marvin]

Given the state of the science, it's mostly worthless unless you have some fairly specific concerns. If you're that worried about your health, odds are you're following best health practices anyways and a few percent up or down isn't going to affect how you live your life.

It'll be invaluable in the future when they start targeting drug treatments to specific genotypes, but that's not happening yet except on a very crude level (race based pharmaceuticals). As prices will keep dropping, I don't see much of a reason to bother now unless you like worrying or, again, have some specific concerns.

 

[Uncle Erik]

I'd probably choose to find out.

Because if I knew when I'd die, I'd really shaft some insurance companies.

 

[Edwood]

We're just one step closer to a Gattica kind of future.

-Ed

 

[Duggeh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood /img/forum/go_quote.gif We're just one step closer to a Gattica kind of future. -Ed

Is that better or worse than a Deus Ex one?

 

[blessingx]

As long as it's not Idiocracy.