The Money of Sequencing
16/09/10 17:41 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 15:41.
Matthew Herper in his Forbes' article stated, "The beneficiaries of this genetic info have included an infant in Turkey with wasting diarrhea, a scientist who sequenced his own genes using a machine he designed, and another geneticist who had spent his life trying to figure out the mystery of his own disease." These cited examples of a few scattered reports is hardly an "increasing number of cases in which people have been helped medically by knowing their genome." I suspect that knowledge of all of the defective genes that one harbors in their genome will primarily create even higher anxiety in hypercondriacs and schizophrenics. This will probably induce or exacerbate more illness than actually be generally beneficial.
In my previous responses to GenomeWebs' Daily Scans on blogs on this subject, I have challenged the practicality of whole genome analysis being generally useful for disease diagnosis and questioned the actual costs to consumers. Consequently, I will not dwell on this now. Remarkably, Mr. Herper even made mention in his article of perhaps zero costs for reading out a person's genetic code by 2020. As such illusions continue to populate the mainstream media that average people can access and understand, there will be increasing confusion and false hopes generated.
Those in the know should really be more active in providing realistic viewpoints on the merits and real costs, including lost opportunities in more fruitful directions, with whole genome sequencing for the general public. The situation is starting to really get out of hand with major governments and charitable agencies contemplating funding whole genome sequencing of tens of thousands of people for research purposes.
At the end of his short article, Mr. Herper does raise the most obvious question of who is going to pay to have their genomes sequenced and analyzed. As my business colleagues often ask me, "Where's the money?" It is highly unlikely to be from governments that pay for health care or insurance companies. Without a market, and other much better ways of getting useful information for disease diagnostics, I look forward to hearing less on this red herring.
Link to the original blog post.
Matthew Herper in his Forbes' article stated, "The beneficiaries of this genetic info have included an infant in Turkey with wasting diarrhea, a scientist who sequenced his own genes using a machine he designed, and another geneticist who had spent his life trying to figure out the mystery of his own disease." These cited examples of a few scattered reports is hardly an "increasing number of cases in which people have been helped medically by knowing their genome." I suspect that knowledge of all of the defective genes that one harbors in their genome will primarily create even higher anxiety in hypercondriacs and schizophrenics. This will probably induce or exacerbate more illness than actually be generally beneficial.
In my previous responses to GenomeWebs' Daily Scans on blogs on this subject, I have challenged the practicality of whole genome analysis being generally useful for disease diagnosis and questioned the actual costs to consumers. Consequently, I will not dwell on this now. Remarkably, Mr. Herper even made mention in his article of perhaps zero costs for reading out a person's genetic code by 2020. As such illusions continue to populate the mainstream media that average people can access and understand, there will be increasing confusion and false hopes generated.
Those in the know should really be more active in providing realistic viewpoints on the merits and real costs, including lost opportunities in more fruitful directions, with whole genome sequencing for the general public. The situation is starting to really get out of hand with major governments and charitable agencies contemplating funding whole genome sequencing of tens of thousands of people for research purposes.
At the end of his short article, Mr. Herper does raise the most obvious question of who is going to pay to have their genomes sequenced and analyzed. As my business colleagues often ask me, "Where's the money?" It is highly unlikely to be from governments that pay for health care or insurance companies. Without a market, and other much better ways of getting useful information for disease diagnostics, I look forward to hearing less on this red herring.
Link to the original blog post.