“After writing ten editions of a human genetics textbook and lots of articles,” writes Ricki Lewis, “you’d think I’d be first in line to get my genome sequenced. But I prefer ignorance.” Chief among her reasons is the immaturity of the science. “The state of the science provides both too much and too little information.”
“At the top of the list of diseases I don’t want to know about are those of the brain, Woody Allen’s second favorite organ. If I can’t prevent or delay them, why spend years worrying? … On the too little information front, we need to know more than a string of DNA letters or a list of gene variants. We need to know how our genes interact. It’s like reading a novel and considering each word in a vacuum, compared to understanding the unfolding story.”
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View the original article here: Why I Don’t Want to Know My Genome Sequence
