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Two Companies Now Offering Personal Gene Sequencing
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Nov 17, 2007 04:34 PM
from the sequencing-for-fun-and-profit dept.
from the sequencing-for-fun-and-profit dept.
corded writes "Yesterday, deCODE genetics announced the launch of their $985 personal genotyping product, deCODEme (video), beating their competitors to market. Perhaps not coincidentally, 23andMe's website is suddenly much more informative today, and the New York Times features a preview of 23andMe's $999 offering. deCODEme and 23andMe will scan about a million and 600,000 sites across the genome, respectively and assess your risk for common diseases, along with providing information about ancestry, physical traits, and the ability to compare genes with friends and family."
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Privacy Fears Send DNA Tests Underground 222 comments
biobricks writes "The New York Times is reporting that people who could benefit from genetic testing are too afraid their health insurance companies are going to raise their rates or deny them coverage to find out the health information contained in their own genes. There is a growing "genetic underground" where people pay for their own tests so they won't have to share the results with insurers, and beg doctors not to divulge their genetic status in medical records. A bill that would ban genetic discrimination by insurers and employers — and presumably make people feel safer about taking care of their health — is stalled in the Senate. We've discussed these types of personal DNA tests in the past."
[+]
California Cracks Down On Genetic Testing 152 comments
genie-out-of-the-bottle writes "California's Department of Public Health has sent cease-and-desist notices to 13 companies that market genetic testing directly to consumers. (We discussed these services when they launched.) Allegedly, under state law, California residents must submit a doctor's order to have a genetic test run. It will be interesting to see if the government will actually succeed in putting the genetic genie back in the bottle, given that all you need for testing is a few drops of saliva. The effort closely resembles US government attempts to block export of strong encryption product back in '90s." A Wired editor has up an opinion piece arguing that his DNA is his business and none of the government's.
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Not yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Insurance companies should not deny people coverage based on a genetic assessment.
2. Insurance companies should not charge a different premium based on genetic assessment.
That is not based on political correctness? Note that, if you get life insurance, they already take blood and urine tests prior to determining your premium.
Parent
Re:Not yet (Score:5, Insightful)
No one gets to choose their genetic makeup, sex or race when they are born, so why discriminate people based on something which is out of their control?
Take a look at the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 [genome.gov]:
Parent
Re:Not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
They do not now have that right, nor should they have that right in the future. Just because they are private enterprises does not mean that they should be exempt of regulation; in fact, the whole point of regulation is to make the profit motive of private enterprises work in parallel with the public interest.
It's in the public interest that people have access to affordable health insurance, in particular if their genes show that they may need it in the future. If insurers were allowed to cherry-pick, then ultimately the taxpayers would have to pay for the treatment of these people, unless you want to let them rot homelessly in the streets.
Parent
Re:Not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Insurance companies should charge the correct amount, given all knowledge of risk factors -- insurance should be spreading risk among your insurance pool, not about getting free medical care. The problem is that this results in morally repugnant things like denying people care for unlikely conditions they're predisposed to but had no control over.
In an ideal world, this would be an argument for socialized medicine, or at least goverment-run health insurance for such factors. At a societal level, a certain fraction of people will have genetic anomalies, and at a societal level we shouldn't discriminate against them. It's no different from a car accident -- even if you're a good, careful driver, you roll the dice every time you get behind the wheel. The difference is that the dice get rolled (at least in part) long before the healthcare bills start to appear. But, that doesn't make it any less of a "risk" -- it just means that people can attempt to opt out of paying their share after they've checked the dice roll.
The ideal solution would be to cover everyone based on a pool composed of everyone -- aka mandatory government funded insurance (or socialized healthcare, depending on how you want to look at it).
(And to wander further afield -- there are lots of issues with our current healthcare system. I'm skeptical that socialized healthcare is the answer, and I don't know that implementing government insurance for genetic conditions would actually improve anything. At the same time, I find it ethically wrong to allow people to use genetic results they know about in decisions about what healthcare coverage to buy, but not allow the providers to use the same information in decisions about what to charge. It's a difficult and many-faceted problem, and I won't pretend to have even some of the answers.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
In this example, a simple blood test can confirm the high cholesterol condition either way, and is a much more fair way of determining the insurance company's risk.
In addition, some diseases wouldn't set in from childhood. In this case, a risk factor is pre-existing, but the disease itself is not.
What this tells you is what to watch out for, not what you have.
Parent
Sure You Know Who Your Father Is? (Score:5, Interesting)
Irrebuttable presumption of paternity (Score:5, Insightful)
So, even if you can prove (DNA testing) that she had an affair and "your child" isn't your child, the courts, in the divorce, will still treat the child as yours and force you to pay support etc. This. of course, is all done in the interest of the child.
Also, paternity fraud (lying about the father of the child) is not considered domestic abuse. It is A-OK as far as the courts are concerned.
Welcome to equality
Parent
Re:Sure You Know Who Your Father Is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Anonymity? (Score:4, Insightful)
scared of your HEALTH providers? (Score:5, Insightful)
It just show how screwed up the paradigm of insured medicine is... It is a good thing that this sort of genetic monitoring is becoming available for everybody. However, I find it unfortunate to see that it can be used against those people by the same corporations who are supposed to look for your health... go capitalism!
Parent
This is great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, who owns your genetic code in a larger sense?
I remember a funny science fiction story, which maybe isn't so funny anymore.
A football team attempted to patent the genetic code for one of it's star running backs, so they could clone him and assure the success of the franchise forever. When he complained, he was told he should have read the fine print of the contract better...
The football team's legal team were trumped, when his parents stepped up and proclaimed thier rights as the original creators of this particular bit of intellectual property...
(i feel inspired to sign up, this is my first post to slashdot, posting is fun!)
deCODE will let you dowload your results (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, doomsayers here are saying insurance companies can choose to not insure someone with certain genes or charge them insane amounts.
Scary, but the solution is obvious -
[1] force insurance companies to ensure ANYONE
[2] legally define and enforce a ceiling rate they can charge, regardless of how bad your genes look.
I can already hear privacy advocates screaming and yelling "why give them our genes in the first place"? That's a moot point for two reasons -
1. It's a losing battle. Eventually, our genes (or those of our relatives) will be accessible.
2. Hiding our genes in general os shooting ourselves in the foot. Some (and I belong to this group, hence will use "we") may WANT their genes to be publicly available, much like I want source to be available. So products, offerings, solutions to problems and industry can spring due to their availability.
The most obvious reason not to hide our genes, however, is simple: people who have non-fucked genes will want to, they will pay a lower premium. Money talks.
Here is how it will most likely evolve from what we have today:
We pay today default premium X. I will assume charging >X is not financially feasible due to competition, and that X is the sweet spot.
Insurance companies will offer a genetic evaluation kit. It allows one to PRIVATELY evaluate himself, and submit the results to the insurance companies if his genes are ok, thereby halving his premium to 0.5X.
After a period of adoption, let's say several years, The percentage of "fucked genes" individuals in the default pool will be much higher, as many of the "ok genes" individuals have opted to pay less by letting their genes be known to the insurance company. The insurance expenses associated with maintaining the default pool will go up, causing X to go up to 2X, causing more and more people to abandon that pool.
At some point government regulation kicks in, and sets a government-controlled ceiling rate for the default rate (much like they control minimum wage).
Since the default rate is now at 2X, the insurance companies set the "ok genes" rate back from 0.5X to X, as it allows them to both maintain their incentive for people to abandon the default-paying group and share their genes, as well as allowing them to charge as much as the market allows - X.
It may be 0.9X (as the minority that costs the most is covering its expenses through a higher rate and possible government subsidation, hence making the competition-induced sweet-spot lower than when this included many expensive cases to treat).
I predict this will happen, as this is where the incentives are today. Note that the primary driving force here is consumer "greed", not insurance companies. People will want to pay that lower premium, even if crappy prophets such as myself predict that once the "fucked genes" people were isolated in the default group, everyone's rates will go back to what they were before (except the defaulters that will pay more). People will FLOCK once lower rates are offered, because people are damn well motivated by paying less.
Insurance companies WILL know our genes and it's a losing battle.
Think it through. Share your opinion.
It's something that requires thought and debate NOW.
Re:Insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
There's another interesting potential use for genetic disease screening. I don't know if it applies to any known diseases now, but I'm certain it will eventually.
Suppose there's a disease for which there is a genetic test, but also good preventative care options. Ideally, you'd want to take the test, find out that you're at risk, and have the insurance company pay for the prevantative care. In an ideal world, that's what they would want too -- the preventative care would cost them less than paying if you actually did get sick. Both parties would then want the test administered, and want the other party to know the result.
Parent
The offerings: Navigenics vs 23andMe vs deCODEme (Score:5, Informative)
23andMe: 550k SNPs + 30k custom SNPs, $999
deCODEme: >1M SNPs, $985
Navigenics: $2500, with hints at a "lock-in" model where you purchase a subscription service for continued updates as science understands more about disease:genotype correlation.
One company that was not mentioned is Knome [knome.com]. They haven't released details of their service, but instead of SNPs, they plan to offer whole genome sequencing. This is the direction that all of the above companies will head, once it's economically feasible to sequence the whole genome.
(Most of this has been summarized on my site: http://seqanswers.com [seqanswers.com])
Weird comment but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The movie Gattaca comes to mind.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
as of 2005 [nationalgeographic.com]
Ohne Worte (spechless, though not quite)
CC.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something Is Missing... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For less... (Score:3, Informative)
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html [nationalgeographic.com]
Less money and pretty interesting. I did it myself and was pleased with the results. Very interes
Third that (Score:3, Interesting)
I do too think it's cool, and the search for genes that might pose a health risk sounds like something great for public health. I don't know what it would implicate, but I suppose it might tell you how likely you are to have a certain type of cancer/cardio