After reading the articles and watching the videos in the syllabus over the past couple weeks there were definitely distinct ones that really stood out to me and sparked my interest. One article in particular that struck a chord with me was “A Health-Tracking App Analyzed My Blood and Told Me I’m 31 Going on 54”. I thought this article was insightful and really got my mind thinking about the benefits of these health tracker apps but also the down sides they may cause.
The article went into detail on how a woman sent in her blood to test for different biomarkers. The idea of it is intriguing. Send in a sample and be able to know all these different statistic about your own blood levels and components, what diseases you could end up being at risk for and where you are healthy.
Maybe not so fast…as the article stated this may deter people from wanting to seek out the doctors knowing they already have something wrong. Many people are terrified of the doctors office, a study in Britain even revealed that 61 percent of people are fearful of going to the doctor because they are afraid of bad news. (According to and article written by the Independent.) These new technologies may worsen the problem even more than it already exists. Sure, your average health and wellness student/major etc may find it utterly fascinating but the average joe, not so much.
Another idea that popped into my head was the security of these. How much of our DNA do we want to be giving out to random companies? How much do we actually trust these companies that are getting a blueprint to our DNA? What could this mean in the future? We are legitimately giving away our cells to random companies and trusting them to use them ethically. There is risk to giving companies this material.
Also, as we talked about in class what this could mean for insurance purposes. If all the sudden our insurance sees that our biomarkers are 50 years beyond our actual age, could they deny coverage for “pre-existing conditions”? These are all questions we should be asking ourselves before we get too into the technology that it takes us over.
There are the positives, don’t get me wrong, but at what cost?
The image above is from the article about blood samples tested for biomarkers.
A very interesting video I found explained the risks that people do not think about associated with sending in saliva samples to websites such as 23&me and Acestry.com. Basically, when you send your samples over and you agree to the terms and conditions you give that company all rights to your DNA. This means they can do whatever they want with your sample. You no longer own it.
In general, health and technologies associated it with it has some really fantastic benefits, but there is also a scary side. Each individual needs to determine where they draw the line in their health journey and what resources they are willing to use and give up.
Christine 