; Your DNA is a valuable asset, so why give it to ancestry websites for free?
"The announcement by 23andMe, a company that sells home DNA testing kits, that it has sold the rights
to a promising new anti-inflammatory drug to a Spanish pharmaceutical
company is cause for celebration. The collected health data of 23andMe’s
millions of customers have potentially produced a medical advance – the
first of its kind. But a few weeks later the same company announced
that it was laying off workers amid a shrinking market that its CEO put down to the public’s concerns about privacy.
These two developments are linked, because the most intimate data we
can provide about ourselves – our genetic make-up – is already being
harvested for ends we aren’t aware of and can’t always control. Some of
them, such as better medicines, are desirable, but some of them should
worry us...
These are the privacy concerns that may be behind layoffs, not only at 23andMe, but also at other DTC companies,
and that we need to resolve urgently to avoid the pitfalls of genetic
testingwhile [sic] realising its undoubted promise. In the meantime, we should
all start reading the small print."
Showing posts with label DNA as valuable asset. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA as valuable asset. Show all posts
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