Cracking and Protecting My Genetic Code Cracking Your Genetic Code

Genetics has advanced to the point that it is inevitable that genotyping services will become commonplace and increasingly inexpensive, unless legislatures take action to limit the public's access to this information. Since genotyping services are essentially businesses catering to the public and providers of medical services, an issue about quality and the relevance of findings becomes important. Near the beginning of the Nova film Cracking Your Genetic Code, the filmmakers introduce the topic about whether the public should have access to their own genetic information without the need of getting a doctor's permission. There are obvious merits to this concern, especially in light of how customers will interpret the statistical results.

The dangers inherent to receiving genetic information in the form of probabilities are that a customer will not understand the significance of a result and will fall prey to over-interpretations that some companies may provide. As discussed in the film, the same DNA sample could produce a disease probability estimate of 53% from one company and 72% from another because the scientific staff responsible for reviewing the scientific literature may have arrived at different interpretations. On the other hand, a company could simply be behind in reading the latest research findings and therefore relying on outdated scientific data.

A related concern is that companies providing genotyping services may also...

For example, what happens when a CEO of a genotyping service holds stock in a drug used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease and the probability scores received by customers tend to be higher than that provided by other genotyping companies? Will we need legislation preventing such conflicts of interest, including any ties to medical and health insurance providers? Or, will customers have to pay for genotyping from several companies in order to get a more unbiased result? Such concerns will not be alleviated by requiring customers to get a physician's permission.
While the excitement generated by the ongoing research in this area and the services now available to customer is well deserved, genotypic services are in essence businesses and are therefore prone to all the problems that arise when bottom lines conflict with the public's health needs. These concerns though, should not interfere with the public's ability to discover the wealth of information contained in their own genome. Patients today now have complete access to their medical records, including their laboratory results, and any questions that may arise can be addressed during a visit or phone call with their primary care doctor. Genetic information can be treated in the same manner.

The concern mentioned in the documentary about the genetic information not only impacting one individual, but the whole family, also seems to be moderated somewhat by the common knowledge that a family history of a disease is…