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genetic testing question

asecin

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
1,725
hi, im curious to ask if any of you ever did genetic testing, like 21andme type of stuff?
im wondering if to do this, but i read some worrying things that those places that do genetic testing for the general public actually distribute it to various business and establishments and spread your data all over the place. that might affect you in various ways , especially with health insurances finding out about your health based on gene testing. anyone else not worried about this? is it really worth doing this gene testing considering your information might be wide spread out??
 
I had a genetic test with 23andMe, because I find that stuff interesting even if it's of no use to me and I also wanted to know if I was at risk of any genetic diseases in my future. I try to operate on the principle that it's always better to know stuff and be able to plan for it than just live in blissful ignorance. I wasn't disappointed on the whole, there is some interesting stuff in the reports they give you, and there are a bunch of sites online that you can plug your raw genetic data into and access a wealth of more speculative information based on more recent research.

I never really worried about them sharing my genetic information other companies. Fortunately I live in a part of the world with a slightly more rational health system not based on the barbaric and unjust practice of health insurance which essentially denies critical treatments to people just because they are poor - and I like to hope that as a species we are moving towards a brighter future where every government will realise that such systems are archaic and unjust. Also, your genetic information is pretty hard to keep secret - if you've ever given a sample of blood or another bodily fluid, for example, then that organisation if they wanted to could obtain and record your genetic information. Chances are they wouldn't however because currently while it is not exactly an expensive process, it does require specialist equipment, and our understanding of our genetic code is not currently at the level that it's very likely any company would decide the cost of secretly recording the genetic profile of everyone they could would justify the cost savings in overcharging people for health insurance or certain treatments based on a vaguely increased likelihood of them developing some kind of disease... it's far cheaper to just employ people to find reasons to deny people essential treatments based on vague assertions that they hid some piece of relevant information... like they already do.

My final point would be that I think we all have to accept that ultimately we will live in a society where mass surveillance is the norm and the concept of privacy has changed significantly from our ideas about privacy today, and I like to hope that at the point that every surface in every major city on Earth is covered in smart sensors monitoring every aspect of the surrounding environment for spoken commands, potential dangers, or just for data collation for some other reason, we will have evolved culturally as a species to the point that, for example, we won't try to police people's lives in some of the insane and unjust ways that we do today (ahem, War on Drugs, prime example as ever).

That being the case, the idea that a private company has my genetic data is pretty low on my list of concerns. Of course, I could be wrong, we could be moving blindly towards a techno-dystopia where such mass surveillance is used to imprison people for saying something critical about the government and my genetic data is used as a reason to hunt down and slaughter any descendants I may or may not have... but right now I don't think that's too likely, and in any case the risk to me right now that my genetic data can be misused in any way, I think, is very very low.
 
well, i already got the kit from wallgreens and ill do it. ill just put a fake name on the account so this way i will prevent any real association with me in fact if anything is sold or being exploited regarding my DNA. i think its that simple and it will work. just dont use real name
 
I won't do it. I think too many things can be exploited. A relative of mine did it or similar, so close enough for me.
 
what happened with your relative of yours. im sorry i couldnt understand anything you typed
 
23andme signed a $500 million deal with glaxosmithkline last year to share genetic data. They remove your personal info from the data so it's not identifiable, but I still don't trust it. We don't have as many consumer rights as we think we do and fascism is growing.

I wrote to 23andme and told them to delete my account. They said the account would be deleted, but under California law they had to retain my DNA profile for 10 years. The law sounds like big brother to me.

Even if my ID is removed from the DNA, I don't want my genetics being used for big pharma experiments. Fuck those assholes.
 
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