Your personal genetic code: On sale now for $399!
Leslie Crews
Tuesday, 09 September 2008 22:46 UTC
A Google-backed biotech company, 23andMe, just dramatically reduced their cost for consumer genetic testing from close to $1000 to under $400, hoping to pique the interest of health and technology-oriented customers. The company hopes to also expand their database of genetic information so that researchers seeking new insights into genetic linkages with diseases can study the data.
By cutting the price of its service, the company hopes to increase demand and hasten the day when a full genetic screening becomes routine medical practice, said 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki.
So now that consumer genetic testing costs about the same as any higher end, new-fangled electronic device (GPS, ipod, iphone), would you want access to your own genetic code?
And do you believe that at some point every baby born will be genotyped? How far off are we from that?
-
Replies
-
I once read a fascinating article that profiled a deaf couple that had conceived a child by artificial insemination using sperm donated from a friend who was also deaf. Their hope was that they would conceive a deaf child. Their choice was controversial because some people thought that condemning your child to be handicapped (and therefore start life severely disadvantaged) bordered on child abuse. On the contrary, the couple felt that being deaf wasn’t a handicap; rather, it would enable their child to be a part of their lifestyle and community.
I mention this because it brings up an ethical point in genetic screening that I’ve thought a lot about since reading the article: who decides which traits are acceptable and which are defective? Scientists? Parents? Society?
-
