You too can be a big mouth
From The Times:
The risks and social challenges posed by genetic tests and other health services sold directly to consumers have prompted Britain’s most influential ethical think-tank to begin an inquiry into personalised medicine.
While DNA screens, personal MRI scans and internet advice services that bypass GPs have the potential to empower patients and encourage people to take greater responsibility for their health, they also have drawbacks, according to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
One of the drawbacks, of course, is that think tanks start to ask your opinion about these things. I hope to have my response to the consultation posted before the July 21 deadline, he said with a mostly straight face.
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."