attitudes towards genetic testing
dgmacarthur | January 22, 2010Disclaimer: my wife and I have both received and used free testing kits from Counsyl.
Counsyl is a rather enigmatic player in the personal genomics field: apart from a brief mention in Steven Pinker's excellent NY Times piece over a year ago and an even briefer post on a Newsweek blog late last year, the company has been in determined stealth mode for much of the last two years.
All that was publicly known about the company when I wrote about them last year was that they will be offering a large-scale carrier screening test: basically, allowing couples who are considering having a baby to…
dgmacarthur | June 5, 2009A reader has pointed me to the latest issue of the American Journal of Bioethics, which is devoted to social networking and personal genomics. I'm still working my way through the many interesting articles, but for now I wanted to cover some useful points in the editorial (entitled "A Pragmatic Consideration of Ethical Issues Relating to Personal Genomics"), which was written by a series of big names from personal genomics company 23andMe, including both co-founders.
The article is designed to address some of the more popular misconceptions surrounding personal genomics; here's a quick run-…
dgmacarthur | April 12, 2009Razib has crunched the numbers from the General Social Survey (a massive longitudinal study of societal trends) to explore the variables associated with response to this question:
Some people say that genetic testing may cause trouble. Others think it
is a wonderful medical advance. Based on what you know, do you think
genetic testing will do more harm than good or more good than harm? [my emphasis]
The major finding: by far the strongest correlation is with attitude towards the Bible (those who regard it as the Word of God are more skeptical of testing), with position on the political…