Estonia, a former Soviet territory nestled in the Baltic region between Latvia and Russia, has become the first nation to provideย state-sponsored genetic testing and adviceโto 100,000 of its 1.3 million residents. Government knowledge of citizensโ DNA architecture may sound like a scary prospectโbut itโs a complicated issue.
โI think itโs an ambitious effort,โ said Laura Hercher, Director of Research in Human Genetics at Sarah Lawrence College and co-founder ofย The DNA Exchange.
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Most state biobank initiatives aggregate data anonymously for medical research. This is what sets the Estonian program apart: DNA donors, in this case, elect to receive certain kinds of information about their genetic makeup.
After a participantโs DNA is analyzed for more than 600,000 DNA variants that have been linked to both common and rare diseases, she canย ask to find outย about the risks of breast cancerโbut request not to see information about rare disorders she could transmit to future children.
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โThereโs a lot of potential for giving people both complicated information, hard-to-understand information, or wrong information if you give out things that we donโt know well, and that we havenโt studied not only among sick people but also among healthy people,โ [said Hercher].
The Estonian governmentโas well as other governments faced with the same decisionsโwill have to grapple with whether or not public health concerns outweigh medical advances.
Read full, original post:ย Would You Give the Government Your Genome?
