111–120 of 228 posts
It’s sad that you can no longer get your genetic health info in Europe from 23andMe, but does this mean GSK will only have access to American info?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it is just insurance companies who will eventually win. I think everyone will have everybody's DNA. People who have serious disabilities should be supported by taxpayer funded programs, in my opinion.
Then the taxpayer should be capturing all the value the insurance companies provide. If they are only insuring the wealthy and healthy and the government pays for the rest, that’s a rather raw deal for the taxpayer. Also I hope you never have my DNA. I can’t think of a reason why you should, and for one possible exercise on why you shouldn’t, please watch Gattaca.
As for your DNA: Do you take the precautions of the protagonist in Gattaca? How do you avoid leaving DNA samples in public places? How long before drones/bots/Roombas are hoovering this up at the behest of some VC?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest question. What is a hacker going to do with my genetic data? What threat does having my medical predispositions publicly available have? Is the hacker going to call me up and suggest I start taking high blood pressure medication?
It's probably not the juiciest target, but I could see intelligence agencies wanting it. Combine it with the OPM hack of all security clearances and you could in theory use it to find family members of spies, people in high positions who have secret children, etc etc. Imagine if you had Trump's DNA and could then search a massive database to find out if he has any kids we don't know about...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some digging by a lay-idiot >> The Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) has built one of the world’s most comprehensive genetics databases, pairing the sequenced exomes and de-identified electronic health records of more than 300,000 people so far. https://www.regeneron.com/genetics-center https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23andMe - users 5 million My understanding is that you are saying 23andme's 5 million records are less…
I don't really know too much about the amount of clinical data 23andme collects and I don't know what SNP data they collect, so I can't say with certainty that they're less valuable than RGC, but I'd guess they are My argument: If you are exploring genomic datasets to find new potential drug targets, then what you really want as the output are single genes that are very strongly associated with dramatic phenotypes. D…
[#] insert your high quality long form news source here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree 23 and me database is valuable but more for the second reason I think the 23 and me data is not sequencing data but genotype data. So it only looks at a certain type of mutation in a limited set of ~500k known mutations. I may be wrong so please correct me if so. So you won't find as many rare mutations in this data, or non-SNP mutations. Also I don't think they have robust clinical data for all subjects, it'…
Some digging by a lay-idiot >> The Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) has built one of the world’s most comprehensive genetics databases, pairing the sequenced exomes and de-identified electronic health records of more than 300,000 people so far. https://www.regeneron.com/genetics-center https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23andMe - users 5 million My understanding is that you are saying 23andme's 5 million records are less…
Make no mistake about what is happening here. GSK is buying access to all of the genetic data that 23andMe has. This is why I am wary to use any 23andMe type of service. "The partners plan to use 23andMe’s data to jointly discover drug targets." They will claim all kinds of protections of course, but it is only a matter of time until genetic data starts being resold.
Or stolen. Or both.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some digging by a lay-idiot >> The Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) has built one of the world’s most comprehensive genetics databases, pairing the sequenced exomes and de-identified electronic health records of more than 300,000 people so far. https://www.regeneron.com/genetics-center https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23andMe - users 5 million My understanding is that you are saying 23andme's 5 million records are less…
I don't really know too much about the amount of clinical data 23andme collects and I don't know what SNP data they collect, so I can't say with certainty that they're less valuable than RGC, but I'd guess they are My argument: If you are exploring genomic datasets to find new potential drug targets, then what you really want as the output are single genes that are very strongly associated with dramatic phenotypes. D…
I presume that GSK thinks they can do more detailed follow up medical questionnaires on the 5m existing users than just any random sample.
But will the genetic material still be viable for retesting with the more advanced chips?
Make no mistake about what is happening here. GSK is buying access to all of the genetic data that 23andMe has. This is why I am wary to use any 23andMe type of service. "The partners plan to use 23andMe’s data to jointly discover drug targets." They will claim all kinds of protections of course, but it is only a matter of time until genetic data starts being resold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh 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…
Insurance 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.
I don't want to spread FUD but why would ANYONE in their right mind give their DNA to a company in Silicon Valley that is explicitely using Google as a model for Data privacy ? (The founder of 23AndMe is the ex-wife of Google founder). Even worse, people are actually PAYING quite a lot to get the privilege of having that company playing with your most private data. This field needs to be heavily regulated. In 20 year…