Saturday, April 9, 2016

My Genome, Myself: Seeking Clues in DNA

In this article, the author talks about a company called 23andMe that has developed a DNA testing service. Customers can create an account on their website and learn about their biological codes and search for explanations about why they are a certain way, or even see their likelihoods of developing certain diseases. The author, Amy Harmon, was asked to be one of the early participants to test out the service. The service costs $1,000 and they only have to take a saliva sample. The author found herself searching everything up in the “Genome Explorer” on the site. She found that she was in good health, besides the fact that she had a higher than average chance of getting heart disease. She also found that has a poor verbal memory as well as the ability to taste certain bitter flavors, such as in brussels sprouts due the fact that she has a G on her 7th chromosome rather than a C. The company was reluctant to release such information out to the public out of concern that people would be alarmed and upset about what they found. For this reason, one of the companies called Navigenics will be providing customers with a phone consultation to discuss the results with a genetic counselor, so that they could explain everything to them, to ensure that customers are more at ease when searching for all of this information about their genome.

It is interesting as well as pretty amazing that these services are beginning to become available to the public. If I had the money to participate in this, I think I might out of pure curiosity. However, I do believe that I would be scared to search for my likelihood of getting certain diseases like heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease. I think that providing genetic counselors is a good idea, but they would go for around an additional $2,500. Rather than having to pay extra, I think that it would be beneficial to provide this service when creating the account. Otherwise, people will be living their lives in fear and they will be paranoid about all of their choices in life. I think that this is an incredible service and can be useful so that people can learn how to prevent the diseases they may have a higher risk of getting. However, I do think that genetic counselors should be provided when creating an account with 23andMe.


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