How Private Are You?

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged. I've been doing a lot of local traveling with interviews, family, friends and other things have been keeping me quite busy for the last 2-3 weeks but I finally found some time at work to write a little bit today.. I read an article a few weeks back where the founder of Google Sergey Brin was funding a company called "23 and me" which decodes your DNA and provides a mini-snapshot of diseases that you are genetically predisposed to. He published a blog where he identified that he had a much higher chance of being afflicted with Parkinsons. Knowing this can really help a person early in their life to alter their lifestyle appropriately to increase their chances of fighting back. The cost of decoding a DNA sequence cost as much as a million dollars a year ago to $5000 today.

This morning, I read another article in the NY Times called "The DNA Age" which identifies a Harvard Medical School study that decodes your DNA for free but the cost of doing this is that your genetic information is made public. Now, you are probably thinking, how dare they reveal my personal medical history and personal attributes to the whole world? I personally think that we are living in a world where privacy doesn't exist. Call me a cynic, but that's the truth. Google reads your mail, the gov't and banks see your money, the doctor/nurse/pharmacist see your health records.. they're all stored in a central database somewhere.. so what's wrong in you just revealing it yourself.. I would rather know that I am genetically predisposed to a heart attack than live my life with the false belief that my life is private and that no one knows the real truth about me.. The interesting question brought about in the article says that if you have an identical twin, both twins need to agree to share the information as the genetic information is a little too similar.. but in all other cases, when a person signs over the genetic data, it's property of the company "personalgenomes.org".. Imagine if your gene, along with a hundred thousand others can identify the exact sequence that causes alzheimers and parkinson's and could potentially prolong the life of millions in the future..

Last week, we faced some tumultuous times as a family after the passing of my 47 year old cousin. Cause: Heart Failure. If my DNA could have been used to identify common family traits, perhaps he could have been better prepared and lived a healthier lifestyle to stop this tragic event. I think that privacy advocates need to wake up and smell the air and realize that privacy is a myth and the sooner we accept that, the faster we can help future generations.