23andMe licenses its own drug compound to Spanish firm Almirall

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Re: 23andMe licenses its own drug compound to Spanish firm Almirall

#81

Post by krageon » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

stanmancan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern in these services is, at what point in the future does your DNA get weaponized against you? When do you get declined for health insurance, or have jacked up premiums, because the insurance company bought a report from 23andMe that says you have a predisposition to expensive disease ? My DNA isn't a secret, but I don't yet feel comfortable voluntarily handing it over to be indexed by a for profit company th…

> When do you get declined for health insurance, or have jacked up premiums, because the insurance company bought a report from 23andMe that says you have a predisposition to expensive disease? US federal law prohibits this [1]. [1] https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/testing/discrimination

Laws are purely a technicality. Especially with the US lobbying situation being the way it is, I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expect that some bad thing heavily incentivised for won't happen just because it's not allowed now.

Re: 23andMe licenses its own drug compound to Spanish firm Almirall

#82

Post by awb » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #79

awb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I stopped thinking of my DNA as a secret when I realized how impossible it is to keep other people from having access to it. The idea isn't 100% security or nothing, but to make it harder for the data to be exploited. Lots of our personal data isn't a well kept secret, but I also don't give it to any company that asks for it, unlike my shoe size.

The harder it is to exploit the data, the harder it is to do basic genetic research. There's a fundamental dilemma there. If you don't want to share your data with research organizations, so be it. But calling other people suckers for voluntarily sharing their data means you'd rather live in a world where scientific and medical advancement are stunted. That's like called open source contributors suckers, as it gives…

I'm just saying don't share your DNA with everyone because you think it's an open secret.

Genetic research is important but pick the lab carefully.

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