The cow is out of the barn and she’s reading her gene journal
My response to the recent NEJM editorial on commercial personal genomics companies:
…many [personal genomics customers] will march into their doctors’ offices looking for help reading their genomic tea leaves. Most physicians, at least for the moment, are ill-equipped to deal with this. But does that mean the appropriate response is to simply pat patients on the head and tell them to wait a few years until the New England Journal says it’s OK?
That strikes me as both unproductive and naive.
Read the rest here.
I work as an Assistant Professor in the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (although this site and its content are my own).
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it. I am interested in the relevant technologies and especially the attendant privacy and other ethical/legal/social issues.
This blog may also discuss some of my non-genome interests or, to paraphrase Dwight Yoakam, "Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music, etc etc."
The header image comes from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange's multimedia performance piece, "Ferocious Beauty: Genome."
February 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Quote:
“Last year, a group of Canadian researchers announced that a common laboratory chemical could shrink tumors in rats. Within weeks, cancer patients were buying the chemical, purifying it to pharmaceutical grade, injecting themselves with it and comparing results with each other online.”
I had not heard of this…send me a reference if possible. I have heard of HIV patients enrolled in clinical trials all getting together, mixing their pills in communitarian fashion, so everyone got a portion of the therapeutic drug and nobody would be left holding the bag with the placebo.
Jason
February 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
The best coverage of this was in New Scientist, 28 March 2007 in stories by Linda Geddes. It’s subscription only I think (I can’t always tell with NS–it’s irritating) but worth hunting down:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19325973.800-cancer-therapy-when-all-else-fails.html
February 9th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Love the article.
-Steve