{"id":677,"date":"2010-10-16T12:14:23","date_gmt":"2010-10-16T11:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=677"},"modified":"2010-10-16T12:14:23","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T11:14:23","slug":"can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/10\/16\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you Insure the DNA Dozen?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s an interesting piece that’s been floating around some of the newspapers (Telegraph<\/em> coverage here<\/a>; The Australian here<\/a>)<\/span> <\/em>over the last few days about the “DNA Dozen” – 11 scientists and one lawyer who’re having their genome published online in order to demystify the process and tame some of the public’s perception.<\/p>\n

Fair dos to them. \u00a0My hunch is that genetic privacy arguments are often bunk, and anything that helps storm the citadel is fine by me. \u00a0What we think of as our genomes aren’t really our<\/em> genomes<\/em> at all, so much as a genome that’s overwhelmingly the same for everyone save for a couple of quirks here and there. \u00a0The notion of ownership of the genome, and of privacy, is much slipperier once you begin to get your head around that. \u00a0If we’re to make sense of genetic privacy at all, we need to do so with a different set of tools from those that we apply to other kinds of information – using conventional notions about the control of information generates some deeply counterintuitive results.<\/p>\n

Anyway: I’m taken by a comment from \u00a0Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Your DNA contains very personal information about you, and in the longer term we can’t be certain this won’t be used by insurance companies. I don’t think scientists should be encouraging this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not clear whether she’s saying that scientists shouldn’t be promoting the use of genetic information by insurance companies – which is OK, because that’s not what they’re doing – or shouldn’t be making their genomes public – which is unexplained: the objection would here seem to be that people shouldn’t make genetic information public because that’d mean it was public. \u00a0GASP!<\/p>\n

But the insurance claim is interesting in its own right.<\/p>\n

Putting my own (increasingly loony-lefty) politics to one side for the moment, I don’t see the problem with insurance companies getting hold of information. \u00a0They didn’t enter the market for the benefit of the customers; they did so to make a profit – and there’s nothing self-evidently wrong about that. \u00a0They seek profit by offering a price for insurance on an open market. \u00a0For people to be able to withhold their genetic information (which is much less useful than Ms Wallace thinks anyway) implies that they could buy insurance without having to tell the seller some important piece of information – and that looks like cheating.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, worries about insurance disenfranchisement seem to me to be overblown. \u00a0If there’s a free market in insurance, that requires maximal information. \u00a0But it also suggests that there’ll be competition, and so companies won’t be able to penalise people with a certain gene unjustly for fear of being priced out of the market. \u00a0Premia ought therefore to fall to a level representative of real risk, rather than prejudice. \u00a0If some people pay a higher premium because of their genetic inheritance, then that’s not necessarily unjust: they often pay a higher premium for many insurance products because they represent a bigger risk. \u00a0At the same time, a market will grow up to serve that particular section of the community, just as there’re car insurance firms that specialise in different demographic groups.<\/p>\n

If you want a free market in goods and services, then I suspect you’ll have to bite the bullet in respect of making genetic information public – but, assuming the market functions correctly, then it doesn’t matter much. \u00a0The other option is to abandon the free market. \u00a0I’m all ears on that front: I’ll carry the banner with you. \u00a0But in that case, publicising the genome doesn’t make any difference either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an interesting piece that’s been floating around some of the newspapers (Telegraph coverage here; The Australian here) over the last few days about the “DNA Dozen” – 11 scientists and one lawyer who’re having their genome published online in order to demystify the process and tame some of the public’s perception. Fair dos to […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,328,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-philosophy","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCan you Insure the DNA Dozen? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/10\/16\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can you Insure the DNA Dozen? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s an interesting piece that’s been floating around some of the newspapers (Telegraph coverage here; The Australian here) over the last few days about the “DNA Dozen” – 11 scientists and one lawyer who’re having their genome published online in order to demystify the process and tame some of the public’s perception. Fair dos to [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/10\/16\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-16T11:14:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Can you Insure the DNA Dozen?\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-10-16T11:14:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":640,\"commentCount\":9,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"In the News\",\"Philosophy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2010\\\/10\\\/16\\\/can-you-insure-the-dna-dozen\\\/\",\"name\":\"Can you Insure the DNA Dozen? 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