export_ofoct.com (3)
[00:00.43] But that system is overburdened, under-resourced, and since 2008, it's only added nine new conditions.
[00:11.05] And as we've just said, there are several hundred treatable genetic conditions today.
[00:16.37] It’s going to be very hard for them to keep up.
[00:19.55] Why are people so resistant?
[00:21.94] Why aren't we demanding this?
[00:23.54] Well, part of the reason is human psychology, right?
[00:27.79] You bring home this perfect little baby, and you don't really want to look for something that might be wrong, even if, intellectually, you know it might be treatable.
[00:39.74] But we've got to get past that.
[00:40.54] The other reason is privacy concerns.
[00:41.07] And this is sort of ironic because privacy concerns are real.
[00:45.05] Your DNA is a biometric.
[00:46.91] It's kind of like a fingerprint.
[00:48.51] There's certainly some law enforcement considerations, but if somebody steals my genome, they really can't make much of it.
[00:58.07] Whereas if they steal my electronic footprint or your electronic footprint, there's a lot more harm that can be done.
[01:07.11] So I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about privacy.
[01:09.76] In fact, privacy is protected when you look for genomic information in a medical context, just like it's protected for your psychiatric history and your HIV status and so forth.
[01:21.71] It's also been confusing to have direct-to-consumer genetic testing.
[01:26.76] Now, these companies, for the most part, were very honest about what they offered, but they were not protected by these same legal protections as health care.
[01:38.71] And typical direct-to-consumer companies use a technology called genotyping.
[01:44.29] So they're looking for various markers in the genome, which is good for ancestry and traits, but not so good for mutations.
[01:55.18] For that, you really need the sequencing, every single letter of the DNA, and that's 5,000 times more granular.
