Walking In Wuhan

I ran across this story in the New Yorker today about a company called, 23 and Me. Basically, you pay $400, spit in a vile and – allegedly – the company will analyze your 23 pairs of DNA to tell you definitively whether you’re predisposed for various things from premature baldness to Lou Gehrig’s disease and Alzheimer’s.

I think the story did a good job of capturing the absurdity of celebrities and billionaires spitting into test tubes, but it glossed over key issues that I think were worth discussing. The first of which, is, if given an extra $400, would you pay to learn about things that could potentially end your life. On one hand, yes, it would be good to know that you’re genetically predisposed to heart disease or diabetes because you could take that information and exercise more and eat better. But if there were something in your genetic makeup such as ALS or some other kind of cancer that is essentially a ticking time bomb, would you really want to know?

This raises another question. One of the founders of Google, I forget if it was Larry or Sergey was found to be at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s. He said he MIGHT donate money toward developing a cure. So, if you knew that you were predisposed to prostate cancer, would that cause you to work harder to finding a cure? In some ways, it might be the most effective way to eradicate terminal illnesses.

But in the wrong hands, the technology could be a bad thing. Just think if insurance companies starting using the technology. Suddenly, babies would have previous diagnosed conditions and would thus be uninsurable.

This technology isn’t going anywhere. Google has invested serious money and the company is quickly gaining momentum. The co-founder is Anne Wojcicki, who is married to Google founder Sergey Brin so money won’t run out soon. So what do you think? It’s obviously pretty cool and a bit scary too.

Then again, as somebody said to me today, “you could get hit by a bus tomorrow and none of that really matters.”


[ http://23andme.com/ ]