It’s My Life, It’s Now or Never
By LISA SUENNEN
You can walk into a pharmacy any day and buy a test kit to find out if you are ovulating so that you can undertake family planning activities. You can buy home testing kits to screen for high cholesterol, presence of the HIV virus, even illicit drug use. You can also pony up $500 and buy yourself a genetic test kit from 23andMe, a retail DNA testing service, to find out what might be in your genetic blueprint. Hey, you can even visit a fortune teller if you feel that is how you want to make pre-emptive healthcare decisions.
While some might look askew at how you get information to make choices about your life, it is rare that someone steps in and tries to stop you from doing so. In general, the American way is to say, “Hey, you’re an adult and it’s your life. If you want to engage in self-actualization, whether or not it has a scientific basis, that’s your beeswax.”
As medicine has evolved to a point where over-the-counter testing has become more and more accessible, many consumers have responded to the perceived advantages of privacy, convenience and the heightened ability to make health decisions early. In fact, these are part of the key principles espoused by those who believe that consumers have a right to their own healthcare information. The idea is that the information is about you, the healthcare consumer, and thus should be both readily available to you and yours to do with what you wish. And yet, that is not always the case. Often it’s not even close.
Oddly, our healthcare system has evolved in such a way that your medical records are owned by the physician or hospital or insurance carrier that oversees what happens to you, but do not, in the end, belong to you. Essentially, your medical information is owned by some one else. The records are about you, for goodness sake. Why shouldn’t you have full access to the data whenever and however you want just as you would if you took a home pregnancy test?
A story that came out of UC Berkeley this month once again puts this controversy in the spotlight. As part of a long-standing tradition, my alma mater has had a mission to examine “issues of profound societal importance for the benefits of students and the public.” To achieve that objective, they have traditionally asked all incoming new students to read a common book and then take multiple classes that use that book as part of a grander curriculum to study issues of great societal importance. This year, as an alternative to asking students to read the assignment, the university decided instead to “examine the DNA-based technologies certain to alter medical care in the years ahead.” Specifically, students will be offered the opportunity to look at three of their 20,000-plus genes to learn how they digest milk products and metabolize alcohol and whether they need more folic acid, a vitamin found in leafy green vegetables.”
By LISA SUENNEN
You can walk into a pharmacy any day and buy a test kit to find out if you are ovulating so that you can undertake family planning activities. You can buy home testing kits to screen for high cholesterol, presence of the HIV virus, even illicit drug use. You can also pony up $500 and buy yourself a genetic test kit from 23andMe, a retail DNA testing service, to find out what might be in your genetic blueprint. Hey, you can even visit a fortune teller if you feel that is how you want to make pre-emptive healthcare decisions.
While some might look askew at how you get information to make choices about your life, it is rare that someone steps in and tries to stop you from doing so. In general, the American way is to say, “Hey, you’re an adult and it’s your life. If you want to engage in self-actualization, whether or not it has a scientific basis, that’s your beeswax.”
As medicine has evolved to a point where over-the-counter testing has become more and more accessible, many consumers have responded to the perceived advantages of privacy, convenience and the heightened ability to make health decisions early. In fact, these are part of the key principles espoused by those who believe that consumers have a right to their own healthcare information. The idea is that the information is about you, the healthcare consumer, and thus should be both readily available to you and yours to do with what you wish. And yet, that is not always the case. Often it’s not even close.
Oddly, our healthcare system has evolved in such a way that your medical records are owned by the physician or hospital or insurance carrier that oversees what happens to you, but do not, in the end, belong to you. Essentially, your medical information is owned by some one else. The records are about you, for goodness sake. Why shouldn’t you have full access to the data whenever and however you want just as you would if you took a home pregnancy test?
A story that came out of UC Berkeley this month once again puts this controversy in the spotlight. As part of a long-standing tradition, my alma mater has had a mission to examine “issues of profound societal importance for the benefits of students and the public.” To achieve that objective, they have traditionally asked all incoming new students to read a common book and then take multiple classes that use that book as part of a grander curriculum to study issues of great societal importance. This year, as an alternative to asking students to read the assignment, the university decided instead to “examine the DNA-based technologies certain to alter medical care in the years ahead.” Specifically, students will be offered the opportunity to look at three of their 20,000-plus genes to learn how they digest milk products and metabolize alcohol and whether they need more folic acid, a vitamin found in leafy green vegetables.”
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