Ms. Peikoff raises concerns about the personal genomics industry. However, solutions lie not in stymieing commercial efforts through legal and regulatory hurdles, but in working with the industry to promote the collection of even more data in a responsible manner that respects consumers’ privacy and the public’s concerns.
Consistent quality and reporting standards are key. For its part, the industry must drop the pretense of “recreational genomics”: Today’s earwax-type gene may yield tomorrow’s drug metabolism data, and consumers need to be warned. As the industry matures, costs plummet and growing databases allow for robust analyses, we will all benefit from having consistent, reliable and actionable genomic information to keep us healthier and reduce health care costs.
Dov Greenbaum
Mark Gerstein
Above is a published letter, with the following citation:
D Greenbaum and M Gerstein (2014), "In Defense of DNA Testing," NY Times (7 January)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/health/in-defense-of-dna-testing-1-letter.html
or
nyti.ms/1gcip3v
"A version of this letter appeared in print on 7 Jan. 2014, on page D6 (health).
Published letter in response to:
I Had My DNA Picture Taken, With Varying Results
By KIRA PEIKOFF
Published: December 30, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/i-had-my-dna-picture-taken-with-varying-results.html
Twitter response to this letter in storify:
https://storify.com/markgerstein/favorited-tweets-related-to-in-defense-of-dna-test
