A new company called 23andme.com opens to the public today. For $999 you can send them your saliva and they will provide you with your genetic makeup. You are able to login and see what diseases you are more likely to have and then can keep an eye out for those. Hopefully with regular screening and lifestyle changes you would be able to decrease your chances of having bad things happen. Remember that genetics doesn't mean destiny but instead gives you a few things to look out for.I didn't sign up for the service for two reasons. One it is still expensive but more importantly there is no way to use the service anonymously. I can just see that it tells me I have a better likelihood of getting some strange disease and then an insurance company buys 23andme.com and I am no longer able to get insured. I don't think it will be long before anonymous testing comes out to give the information to the customer without the privacy concerns. I think like anonymous AIDS testing it is important to inform the patient more so then bothering to find out who is who.
The NYT did a story on this that is a good read. I see the power this could provide people to be able to change their lifestyles so that they could live longer and happier lives but the potential for abuse is there for sure. Alex and I were talking about this this morning and my hope is there is some legislation passed in order to keep this information out of the hands of the government or big corporations.
Your thoughts on it?
