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DNA Helix

Pad your resume and hide your risks, little meaty cogs

May 26th, 2008 by Andrew Yates

Misha Angrist of Genome Boy writes in response to a comment I made about a challenge to produce an explanation why it is theoretically wrong if genetics is used as an objective standard to select people for services, employment, and admission.

How about this: It is theoretically wrong because we know that we are more than our genes and because we have a long paper trail of misguided and inappropriate social engineering supposedly based on genes.

Listen, I’m sure Misha is a great guy and science editor. I wish I could express my (strong) opinions on this topic without seeming like I’m attacking the author or being disrespectful. I wish that I could be passionate and express my appreciation for the sites, writers, and commenter who make these discussions (it doesn’t help that it’s 3am and the moonlight puts my PC-filter on the frizz)

Yet, I stand by my opinion that the problem is that society doesn’t value people beyond than any potential liabilities.

Genetics is merely the latest means by which to disqualify yourself or mark yourself replacement. It’s not special or problematic this way itself. Genetic testing ist’t the problem. We are.

There isn’t a simple law to fix a vestige social injustice since probably civilization and certainly industrialism. Stop pretending that whatever latest science/social/political doo-dad X is the reason why people treat people like meaty cogs with resumes just because X is strange enough to outshine the cultural noise.

And the greatest irony is that as genomics matures, we’ll increasingly have the ability to address risks before they’re realized. Yet, in our culture, that information is taboo because we expect to be treated as liabilities by our employers, schools, health care providers, and governments. So, again we lose the opportunity to act intelligently, and we continue to blunder about in a haze of ignorance until some emergency compels some myopic intervention. It’s like we’ll binge weekends on oreos and CNN, but we’re embarrassed to weigh ourselves. We act as if “maybe people didn’t know,” that risks will go away. That’s GINA in a nutshell, and while I support the legislation, it’s just caulking to keep back the freak opportunists like Burlington Northern Railway, not landmark legislation.

That said, don’t gimp genomics because genetic testing reminds you that this fact is depressing. It’s my generation’s turn to be garage engineers, and I’ve me a hankering for the genomic Apple I.

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Viewing 4 Comments

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    I think these are great points. I said the same things to Hsien Hsien and Steve back when it was just proposed legislation. GINA just seems like an entirely impossible to enforce, head-in-the-sand approach to the issue, not to mention how bad it'll screw up any academic research proposed for these impossible to anonymize collections of data.

    Won't this allow insurance companies to more accurately determine risk, lowering the cost for everyone immediately, and then still further when medical care improves because of it?
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    The solution isn't to better hide information, but to fix health care. I mean, really, what kind of system is so broken that we feel obligated to laud legislation to make sharing information about one health with one's health care providers... illegal? That's as backwards as to make sharing information about one's income information with one's government illegal because taxes are too high.

    So, yes, GINA is important like a sandbag on a New Orleans levy: it may address a fringe immediate problem, but don't bother patting yourself on the back because the basic infrastructure needs to be replaced. It will be expensive and politically inconvenient, but... well, New Orleans isn't patting itself any more.
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    Well, New Orleans never really was patting themselves on the back. The Army Corps of Engineers (*federal* employees) charged with maintaining the levees were patting themselves on the back for saving so much money cutting corners. But to further the analogy, suppose something like the national flood insurance program(which isn't the best example, I understand) could provide a similar, and more sane example of how to handle insuring things for which risks are reasonably well known. Perhaps a low base rate with a rider for certain specific coverages?

    Anyways, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that doesn't think GINA makes any damn sense. Perhaps single-payer health care will moot the whole issue.

    Any bets as to whether GINA will be as full of FAIL as the ACOE?
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    I think both GINA and ACOE, if they provided and administrated vital, long-term social infrastructure, would be great.

    But they don't, they're both short-term political tools, and neither achieves anything lasting... Health care, levies, etc.

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