Personalized Health Care Initiative Endorsed by US Govt.
http://www.hhs.gov/myhealthcare/
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[N-]
From the linked HHS website:
"The Personalized Health Care Initiative will improve the safety, quality and effectiveness of healthcare for every patient in the US. By using “genomics”, or the identification of genes and how they relate to drug treatment, personalized health care will enable medicine to be tailored to each person’s needs."
The description of this initiative is a little disturbing. I am not within the inner circles of gemonics research, but I am not ignorant either, and have followed much in the practical clinical utility of genetic studies in its application to ameliorate human disease. And, frankly, don't suspect that a broad ("every patient"?) application of genomics will be plausible anywhere in the near future. Is this Mr. Bush's Reagan-esk "Star Wars" SDI solution to this generation's biggest fear? Problem is, Reagan only had to be right-enough about the plausibility of SDI to contribute to a solution to the Cold War, by pulling one over on the USSR. If Mr. Bush isn't right-enough about the plausibility of "genomics" in contributing to a solution to the nation's health care crisis, we are worse off than before.
On the one hand, we politically restrict government funding associated with stem cells on ethical grounds, while on the other, open the federal dollar flood gates for something called "genomics." Personally, I find the idea of my complete genetic make-up sitting in a federal database just as ethically disturbing as the idea of my progeny stem cells cooking in a government funded test tube.
Nawledge
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[N-]
From the linked HHS website:
"The Personalized Health Care Initiative will improve the safety, quality and effectiveness of healthcare for every patient in the US. By using “genomics”, or the identification of genes and how they relate to drug treatment, personalized health care will enable medicine to be tailored to each person’s needs."
The description of this initiative is a little disturbing. I am not within the inner circles of gemonics research, but I am not ignorant either, and have followed much in the practical clinical utility of genetic studies in its application to ameliorate human disease. And, frankly, don't suspect that a broad ("every patient"?) application of genomics will be plausible anywhere in the near future. Is this Mr. Bush's Reagan-esk "Star Wars" SDI solution to this generation's biggest fear? Problem is, Reagan only had to be right-enough about the plausibility of SDI to contribute to a solution to the Cold War, by pulling one over on the USSR. If Mr. Bush isn't right-enough about the plausibility of "genomics" in contributing to a solution to the nation's health care crisis, we are worse off than before.
On the one hand, we politically restrict government funding associated with stem cells on ethical grounds, while on the other, open the federal dollar flood gates for something called "genomics." Personally, I find the idea of my complete genetic make-up sitting in a federal database just as ethically disturbing as the idea of my progeny stem cells cooking in a government funded test tube.
Nawledge
posted by nawledge at
10:01 PM
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