Hey buddy, your genes are showing

The US urgently needs new genetic privacy laws cried Wired last week. 23andMe started advertising August 5th 2013. So Wired is a few years late as this article should have been published in August six years ago. Congress could have pondered how to solve this for a couple of years and passed legislation by 2015.

By now, we are knee-deep in genetic mater and your genetic information is flapping in the wind just like your tighty-whities. This information is like a sex tape — once published it can never be stuffed back in the bottle. You are being robbed blind of your information and you are handing it over with a smile.

Will the US legislation do anything about it? I doubt it. This would require forethought and planning, values even. They still don’t to know how to deal with Facebook, and Facebook spends relatively little in Washington. Big Pharma or insurance companies who stand to benefit most from this information, I believe, spend much more. Do not worry. If any benefits come out of the research of your genetic code you will not be compensated, you won’t even become famous for it.

Drawbacks go even deeper. You are more likely to be discriminated against than benefit from sharing your genetic information. In the meantime see Gattaca to see what your future holds.

#genetictesting #privacy #wired #legislation

PS. I recently listened to an interview with 23andme founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki http://freakonomics.com/podcast/23andme/. She comes across as well intentioned, trustworthy and optimistic. Oh, and at one time (for eight) years se was married to Sergey Brin of Google. She never intended this genetic data to be used by police. I could not find anything on her supposed watchdog Ethical Legal Social Community…