Forum 3

Forum 3

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 1

It has always crossed my mind about testing my genes and using one of the popular gene testing companies, but I never knew what these tests tell you. After doing some research I found out what these tests tell you, these tests use saliva from adults to select relative variants in the DNA to report genetic health risk and carrier status. I think this very cool because if you do this you know if you carry any hereditary disease that you can give your children. How this works for 23 and me is they send you a kit, and you follow the directions for spitting into the tube and then you send it back to where they test the saliva. They test it on a genetic chip which reads thousands of location on your genome. Me personally knowing how far technology has come in the science world I would believe the results because now we can look at DNA and be able to tell if there is something is wrong with your genes or not. On the website for 23 and me they claim that their reports are 99% accurate, so if going off the website, this is why I would say I would trust these results. If I knew the "truth" about my genes I probably would live my life a little different, that way I wouldn't have kids that suffered from a bad disease. I do not think it would be a bad idea to have some DNA to help find cures for diseases but I would only suggest it if people gave consent to giving their DNA. If medicine in the future is personalized to every person, then I think that everyone should have a DNA test to make sure their genetics are good or if they need some kind of special medicine. 

references:

23andMe. (n.d.). The Science Behind 23andMe. Retrieved from https://www.23andme.com/genetic-science/
Pomerantz, D., Pomerantz, D., Pomerantz, D., Pomerantz, D., Vanko, M., Facog, … Rastogi, A. (2019, August 9). 23andMe had bad news about my health. I wish a person had delivered it. Retrieved from https://www.statnews.com/2019/08/08/23andme-genetic-test-revealed-high-cancer-risk/


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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Forum 3

by Deleted user -
Personally? I don't always trust those sites. They are trying to sell you a product, after all. The instructions are definitely clear but-- how accurate it is or what they do with the information you told them to find? Nope. I don't trust it as far as I can throw it

I totally agree with the need to consent to getting your genome sequenced, at least in this day and age. I talked about this in my four, but I think that might become a major future problem, just like internet data is now. Could you imagine someone turning you away at a job interview because your genome says that you're more likely to get cancer? or have schizophrenia later in life? Yikes.

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