Naive question, but how much of this information could be gleamed by a nefarious source from an aluminum can you throw away or a piece of hair you drop?
Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
how are you planning to get rid of your DNA?
You're essentially saying the same as "if you don't want your habits to be tracked and analyzed, get rid of your habits". I'm not planning to get rid of my DNA (why would I?) - I'm just not handing it over to just anyone, least of all a business.
you leave traces of your dna everywhere all the time
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#23I'll go grab my tinfoil hat and be right back.
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#24There are different ways to help advance science without publishing all of your genetic material. As someone who has published my own mtDNA and my father's mtDNA to the NIH GenBank, I feel like I am meeting science in the middle. The mtDNA alone is not particularly useful for identification, but it does help population geneticists who are at a severe shortage of information for certain groups. My father's mtDNA happens to be in a rare haplogroup that only has 4 public samples.
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#25There are different ways to help advance science without publishing all of your genetic material. As someone who has published my own mtDNA and my father's mtDNA to the NIH GenBank, I feel like I am meeting science in the middle. The mtDNA alone is not particularly useful for identification, but it does help population geneticists who are at a severe shortage of information for certain groups. My father's mtDNA happe…
That's an excellent approach.
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#26This is not an issue in the US. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act makes it illegal for insurance or employers to discriminate based on genetic information. See Wikipedia for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimi... Considering how easy it is to get ahold of someone else's DNA and the potential advantages of genetic testing, I think it makes more sense to push for anti-discrimi…
Except those laws won't do anything to prevent abuse. It's the same as with tracking data, really: the only way to prevent abuse is if there is no data to be abused in the first place. You're severely deluded if you think laws will prevent the abuse of this data, much less discrimination based on it.
Yes, exactly, and we know that insurance companies will find ways to harass if not abuse data when it's in their interest. Remember the health insurance companies that give employees bonuses to find ways to invalidate a customer's policy when that customer suddenly has an expensive claim.
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#27Q for the OP: Does this advice apply to consumer genetic testing services like 23 & Me?
The reason I ask is that I'm considering using them to analyze my and my newborn son's genetic code. I have not combed thru their TOS with a fine toothed comb, however. Pls advise. Thx!
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#28As this information becomes more widespread across populations and more detailed per individual, it will degrade the current relationship between insurance and customers that makes insurance work for both sides.
This must change the way insurance companies decide to cover, and how much they charge.
Or health care itself must change from largely insurance provided, to "something else."
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#29Naive question, but how much of this information could be gleamed by a nefarious source from an aluminum can you throw away or a piece of hair you drop?
All of it.
Re: Think twice before analyzing/releasing your genetic data
#30How would one poison pill genetic data to the point of it being worthless to associate with the individual?
It's probably impossible; groups have already tried to anonymize genetic data and failed, and our ability to match genotype to phenotype is only getting better.