Redefining genetic privacy
Experts discuss how advances in genetics will require a rethink about privacy. How do we protect it and would we forgo it over improved health?
This article is an interesting insight into how advances in genetics will likely require a rethink about privacy and how we protect it.
It reports on a meeting at the recent 2010 AAAS conference in San Diego. There a panel of experts criticized US policies and offered solutions to the ethical issues associated with how DNA can or might be used to identify characteristics about us we might want to keep private. It is based on the US legal system, but the same issues would be applicable in Australia.
Australian discussions
I have come across a few people that for differing reasons have no issues with people knowing intimate stuff about them. See TechNyou blog, Cheap Genetic test
Most people I chat to about this, however, do have concerns, but are also torn by the fact that such knowledge could help understand a lot more about human disease and how to treat or prevent it in the first place. If there was to be a choice, not that there needs to be such a stark choice, many of these people would opt for better health over privacy. That is, they would be willing to forgo some of their privacy if it meant better health care for them.
Some of the comments are interesting as well.