Comment · Wed, March 18, 2015 · Ceretropic
Any concern about revealing personal info to genetic testing services?
Original post in this thread
Maxwell_V · 17 points
This came to mind when reading a couple threads about 23andme recently. Correlation of genetic profile with personal identity seems like a legitimate cause for some paranoia, but perhaps there are safeguards in place (?) Does everyone give accurate personal info when submitting those tests? Not doing so would presumably violate some terms or guidelines, but I'm not sure what the consequences would be.
What they were answering
LonghornWelch · 0 points
If every consumer rejected giving up their data, then google would have to part with some of their billions upon billions of annual revenue to pay us for it.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
It's not something I think people should feel entitled to. I happily let them take my genetic data, so that some day it might help someone going through the issues that I am. If it makes Google another billion in the process, then so be it. It might even help me in the future.
What if we could find a common genetic trait to everyone that has the same mast cell disorder I have? Then we can start trying to alter that gene expression. What about finding a common genetic trait to everyone with depression, that does not respond to SSRIs, or one of the countless other things your fellow man has to deal with? Just imagine the amount of knowledge we could gain.
Ideally, we would not have gutted our government science funding during the Regan era, and we would have more public access to that information. However, that is not the case. I think we need to pour more public funding into scientific research like we used to do. The human genome project has given back to society tons more than the money we put into it. Until then, we need to rely on private companies to do it.