The prospect of learning about one’s risk of dire disease in the morning headlines does seem unsavory, but at the same time, genetic information is not an especially vital or dangerous category of knowledge. Such privacy regulations will needlessly reinforce unscientific notions of genetic exceptionalism among the public.
And since the sorts of rules recommended by the commission have the habit of metastasizing into malignant bureaucracies—the paperwork requirements of HIPAA are widely considered to be unnecessarily burdensome, wasting millions of man hours, costing tens of billions, and slowing the pace of medical research—it is highly likely that we will regret adopting such a prohibition sooner rather than later.
Read the full, original story here: Does the Royal Baby Deserve Genetic Privacy?
