Mandated DNA tests?

[RandomGuy]

DNA test reveals 80 markers for inherited cancer risk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21945812



I think that once it becomes available, the government should mandate everybody to take it.

Given the costs of medical care and cancer that affect everybody, there would seem to be a clear public interest in doing so. The government, as well as the private sector, would have a VERY high incentive to avoid costs. If the government doesn't do it, you can bet your ass some insurance company will. They are already offering lower insurance to people who let them snoop on their driving habits.

These tests will not only tell us who is more likely to get cancer, we will learn a LOT about the exact mechanisms.

Broader question:

What about other kinds of tests that look for stuff beyond just cancer? diabetes? heart-disease?

[Wild Cobra]

Yes, one more risk factor for insurance companies to use to ether deny coverage, or charge more.

[TeyshaBlue]

I don't think tests should be mandated by anyone until there a strategy in place to make use of that data. Just knowing means very little seems like.

[DarrinS]

Damn, RG going all Eugenics on us today.

[DarrinS]

We should just figure out who the genetically supreme people are, and sterilize the rest.

[rjv]

a trait is not always expressed

[LnGrrrR]

DNA test reveals 80 markers for inherited cancer risk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21945812



I think that once it becomes available, the government should mandate everybody to take it.

Given the costs of medical care and cancer that affect everybody, there would seem to be a clear public interest in doing so. The government, as well as the private sector, would have a VERY high incentive to avoid costs. If the government doesn't do it, you can bet your ass some insurance company will. They are already offering lower insurance to people who let them snoop on their driving habits.

These tests will not only tell us who is more likely to get cancer, we will learn a LOT about the exact mechanisms.

Broader question:

What about other kinds of tests that look for stuff beyond just cancer? diabetes? heart-disease?

Completely disagree here. If for some reason you are on government healthcare, and a risk factor pops up, MAYBE then. But I'm not for wholesale screening.

[mavs>spurs]

i won't be screened, thats for sure

[FuzzyLumpkins]

a trait is not always expressed

and 'trait' can mean so many different things. titling them 'cancer markers' and checking people off on a list seems a bit presumptuous especially to demand an edict.

[mingus]

Liberals and their love affair with mandates...

[boutons_deux]

Liberals and their love affair with mandates...

Tell us about Repugs vagina obsession and all the vagina REGULATIONS

[jag]

Tell us about Repugs vagina obsession and all the vagina REGULATIONS

Why do you always seem so unhappy? Do you need someone to talk to? A friend?

[boutons_deux]

Why do you always seem so unhappy? Do you need someone to talk to? A friend?

GFY. What's to be happy about the Repugs fucking up the country?

[rjv]

and 'trait' can mean so many different things. titling them 'cancer markers' and checking people off on a list seems a bit presumptuous especially to demand an edict.
agreed.

[RandomGuy]

I don't think tests should be mandated by anyone until there a strategy in place to make use of that data. Just knowing means very little seems like.

I agree. It needs to be mandatory and very well planned/thought out.

[boutons_deux]

Seems like more and more corporations are forcing employees, aka MANDATING, to divulge personal lives and health, with no "freedom" "liberty" "water the tree" screams from the "marans", but if govt did it, they'd be squealing like big fat pigs.

Since that personal medical information is sellable product, who knows how much the corporations are selling it for, sooner or later.

[RandomGuy]

and 'trait' can mean so many different things. titling them 'cancer markers' and checking people off on a list seems a bit presumptuous especially to demand an edict.

Risk factors are risk factors.

They tell you, in the broad actuarial sense, the odds of someone developing a disease.

Right now, we all pay for the cost of every disease out of pocket. Insured or uninsured, it all has costs.

Those costs are measured, and form the basis of all actuarial science.

X disease, costs, on average, Y dollars.

X disease has Z chance of happening to any given person in a large population. If you can more accurately group people you WILL more accurately determine how much their diseases will cost the system and the economy.

Further, most cost/benefit calculations for tests assume some kind of with an average (total population) propensity for developing a disease. If you know your odds are MUCH greater than normal, the calucations as to how much/often you should be tested change. We as a society should be willing to bear these costs, as prevention is almost always cheaper than treatment.

[RandomGuy]

Seems like more and more corporations are forcing employees, aka MANDATING, to divulge personal lives and health, with no "freedom" "liberty" "water the tree" screams from the "marans", but if govt did it, they'd be squealing like big fat pigs.

Since that personal medical information is sellable product, who knows how much the corporations are selling it for, sooner or later.

Both are mildly valid points.

We already allow corporations to collect all sorts of data, e.g. cookies in browsers, etc.

I think a lot on the right tend to dismiss or be a bit ignorant as to how much real power we are giving corporations over our lives. They fear us creeping towards government tyranny, but seem to be ingoring the corporate tyranny happening right under their noses.

Information and resource assymetry is not just for the government, and it should always make you nervous, IMO.

[boutons_deux]

The New Social Darwinism: Companies Require Workers to Divulge Health Info so They Can Charge Overweight and Others Deemed Less Healthy (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/the-new-social-darwinism-companies-require-more-workers-to-divulge-health-info-charge-overweigh-hypertensive-and-otherwise-less-healthy.html)http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/the-new-social-darwinism-companies-require-more-workers-to-divulge-health-info-charge-overweigh-hypertensive-and-otherwise-less-healthy.html#6R2eKT5t2HoRTWgJ.99

[Wild Cobra]

Risk factors are risk factors.

They tell you, in the broad actuarial sense, the odds of someone developing a disease.

Right now, we all pay for the cost of every disease out of pocket. Insured or uninsured, it all has costs.

Those costs are measured, and form the basis of all actuarial science.

X disease, costs, on average, Y dollars.

X disease has Z chance of happening to any given person in a large population. If you can more accurately group people you WILL more accurately determine how much their diseases will cost the system and the economy.

Further, most cost/benefit calculations for tests assume some kind of with an average (total population) propensity for developing a disease. If you know your odds are MUCH greater than normal, the calucations as to how much/often you should be tested change. We as a society should be willing to bear these costs, as prevention is almost always cheaper than treatment.
Yes, we know. But facts make statistics. Statistics do not make facts.

Nobody likes being treated like a statistic, and this adds to that complication. Any such testing should be requested by the patient, and doctor patient privileged should be maintained.

[LnGrrrR]

Yes, we know. But facts make statistics. Statistics do not make facts.

Nobody likes being treated like a statistic, and this adds to that complication. Any such testing should be requested by the patient, and doctor patient privileged should be maintained.

Agreeing with WC here.

[boutons_deux]

statistics ARE demographic, epidemological FACTS

my will-never-be-implemented solution due to "marans" repeatedly voting in Repug extremist obstructionists and BigPharma/Insurance's ownership of Congress

public health insurance paid by everybody on ALL income (not just earned income), NOT an option, deducted by payer off the top.

the insurance contribution on income would be cheaper than for-profit insurance (approaching inevitably $20K/year for family of four)

then we have both universal insurance and health coverage.

It's your choice "Freedom for the marans!" if you want to try to obtain/maintain a BONUS reduction (there will be no MALUS penalty) of your public insurance contribution:

take a "FREE" annual THOROUGH physical, BP, lipids, inflammatory markers, renal, liver enzymes, minerals, hormones (estrogen/cortisol/testosterone), fasting glucose, eGFR, blood, urine, exercise (VOmax, run a mile, etc), carotid/cardiac sonograms, thoracic calcium scan, %age body fat, and pollutants.

the better your numbers are adjusted for your age, etc, the greater your bonus.

This system would have a huge preventative value (early disease detection, spotting BAD trends) with the payoff of curtailed disease treatments.

Since children add cost to their parents insurance contributions, the parents have responsibility for their children's health (children tested, too, always OPTIONALLY)

etc, etc, etc.

There will always be the option, as there is now for Medicare, for anyone to buy private, for-profit insurance on top of their public insurance (sorta like HSA/FSA/Medicare-top-up now).

[boutons_deux]

btw, genetics, DNA aren't destiny. They are risk factors very often modifiable by epi-genetics.

[boutons_deux]

Poll: 47 Million Believe Big Pharma Creates Disease (http://naturalsociety.com/poll-47-million-medical-industry-big-pharma-creates-disease/)

A new major poll from the organization Public Policy Polling over what United States citizens believe to be true about their government and beyond has revealed that a whopping 47 million citizens are privy to the fact that the Big Pharma pharmaceutical industry and the current medical health paradigm are actually generating further sickness within the nation. And that’s just within the United States.

The poll, which asked questions about everything from the use of sodium fluoride in the water to the assassination of JFK, has been popping up in the media where reporters are lumping together concerns about Big Pharma with the belief in Bigfoot. The issue with the poll (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf ), however, is that there is really some strange wording within the questions that I think altered the actual response of the individuals who were surveyed due to the oftentimes confusing or more ‘sinister’ wording utilized by the Public Policy Polling agency.

For example, the question regarding the medical establishment working together with Big Pharma reads as follows:

“Do you believe that the pharmaceutical industry is in league with the medical industry to “invent” new diseases in order to make money, or not?”



And 47 million people, based on the poll stats (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/12-million-americans-believe-lizard-people-run-our-country/63799/), agree that this is the case. But if the wording were to be changed even slightly, I think that we’d see even more widespread acceptance within the public — of which 15% of the entire United States population would agree according to this poll. For example, the wording here could be confusing with the usage of the word invent with quotations, as it could imply that these industries are creating new diseases that are previously unheard of instead of just generating sickness within the population.

http://naturalsociety.com/poll-47-million-medical-industry-big-pharma-creates-disease/#ixzz2PyOyY7ZZ (http://naturalsociety.com/poll-47-million-medical-industry-big-pharma-creates-disease/#ixzz2PyOyY7ZZ)

More GENERAL SUPPORT for a govt health care system whose PRIORITY is health care and curing, not MORE PROFITS.

for-profit health care is a HUGE AMERICAN FAILURE

[TeyshaBlue]

lol poll fail.

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol fail

[TeyshaBlue]

lol compehension fail.

lol cut an paste

lol simpleton

[boutons_deux]

lol compehension fail.

lol cut an paste

lol simpleton

TB :lol content-free snarkiness :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

You run like a little bitch when you see content from me. Nothing new.

[TeyshaBlue]

Did you even read the poll, maran?

[TeyshaBlue]

Of course not. That would take thought.

[Paulie]

lol mandates lol freedom

[RandomGuy]

Yes, we know. But facts make statistics. Statistics do not make facts.

Nobody likes being treated like a statistic, and this adds to that complication. Any such testing should be requested by the patient, and doctor patient privileged should be maintained.

"statistics do not make facts". Do you always form your opinions on vacuous platitudes?

Statistics do make facts. That is how science works and tests hypotheses. If I want to scientifically test something, and draw a sample I can make factual statements with a pretty high degree of certainty about the population and sample.

The problem you have here in making your case is that the costs are shared.

Your private data costs me money. Why should I let you pick my pocket, just because you have some hangup about a centralized database?

[RandomGuy]

I put this here to point out something that makes libertarians squirm.


We are not individuals.

We form.... a society.

Almost everything we do or don't do affects others.

That means you have an interest in my affairs, and I have an interest in yours. Libertarians don't tend to understand economics well enough to grasp why this is.

Case in point:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/how-a-creepy-car-insurance-idea-could-save-thousands-of-lives-and-the-planet/265745/

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2012/11/CarAccidents-thumb-615x364-107036.png


Look at that chart again. It's so simple and so profound. Car insurers have an incentive to charge people more who drive more, since those drivers are more likely to make a claim. In other words, insurers want to put a price on driving. That's just another way of saying they want to put a price on gas. If this sounds like a backdoor gas tax that works in reverse, that's because it is. It puts more money in people's pockets for driving less rather than taking it out for driving more -- which is a distinction without a difference. A disincentive to drive is a disincentive to drive. And disincentivizing driving is something with enormous spillover benefits -- what economists call positive externalities.

It works no different for health insurance and health costs.

We have medicare/-aid to make sure that people who work can get this insurance. We all pay into that system one way or another.

If you develop cancer and cost that system, we all pay for it. Therefore we all have a solid interest in making sure you do things to reduce the risk to yourself.

This would work the same even in the absence of those government programs.

The only way to decouple this is to allow hospitals to let sick people die if they can't pay.

[RandomGuy]

How about this:

Instead of mandatory tests, we offer a discount on your taxes, with the provision that you provide your doctor with the results, and take actions to address your risk factors?


This is what health insurers are going to start doing, just like car insurers.

[boutons_deux]

" allow hospitals to let sick people die if they can't pay."

sociopathic Repug "death panel"states refusing to expand Medicaid are doing just that, lettng poor sick people stay sick, get sicker, and die.

[boutons_deux]

How Big Pharma Is Bringing Forced Drug Tests To a State Near You

Wonder why so many laws to drug test people who receive public benefits are cropping up?

the drug-testing provisions in President Ronald Reagan’s Drug Free Workplace Act as part of the misdirected War on Drugs. Even then, the medical community dismissed the Act’s provisions requiring all federal grantees to test employees as “chemical McCarthyism,” as well as unscientific and discriminatory, since it was more likely to capture days-old marijuana use than frequent consumption of cocaine or alcohol. But the movement nonetheless grew from an anti-drug campaign into an industry with its own trade association, after several moneyed interests like Hoffman-La Roche, the maker of Valium and sleeping pills, got into the business:

The company established one of the first major drug-testing labs in America and won an early urine-testing contract with the Pentagon, leading to $300 million in annual sales by 1987. The following year, Hoffmann-La Roche stepped up its sales efforts with the launch of a major PR and lobbying campaign to “mobilize corporate America to confront the illicit drug problem in their workplaces.” The drug manufacturer called its new campaign “Corporate Initiatives for a Drug-Free Workplace.”

Because this drug testing tends to capture marijuana more than other drugs, proponents of the movement have increasingly demonized marijuana use most of all. Robert Dupont, who served as drug policy director under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, had advocated decriminalizing marijuana and its use a “minor problem” before he became a “drug-testing management” consultant. Then in 1978, he declared marijuana “in many ways” the “worst drug of all the illegal drugs,” later explaining in a PBS special that, “I realized that these public policies were symbolic—all that really mattered was you were for [the decriminalization of marijuana] or you were against it

with fewer and fewer employers implementing drug tests because they have shown “no demonstrable return on investment,” the industry has turned to another lucrative market: those receiving public assistance and unemployment benefits. Several recently passed state laws that require public benefits applicants to take drug tests have been struck down by courts (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1649111/federal-appeals-court-rejects-drug-testing-of-welfare-applicants/), but that hasn’t stopped other states from moving forward with random drug-testing provisions. In South Carolina in 2012, with unemployment still above 9 percent, state legislators pushed three different bills to drug-test the unemployed. And several other states have done the same in the wake of a federal provision that authorizes the tests (http://www.alternet.org/alec-pushes-proposals-drug-test-unemployed). Of course, these laws propose testing for drugs consumed illegally (http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2013/IN/IN1483.1.html) without a prescription. So if those consuming marijuana for stress or trouble sleeping happen to turn instead to prescription use of another federally legal drug, such as Valium or sleeping pills, Hoffman-La Roche just happens to have profited twice over from the process.

http://www.alternet.org/how-big-pharma-bringing-forced-drug-tests-state-near-you

[Wild Cobra]

How about this:

Instead of mandatory tests, we offer a discount on your taxes, with the provision that you provide your doctor with the results, and take actions to address your risk factors?


This is what health insurers are going to start doing, just like car insurers.

Fine. let the health insurers decide the criteria and requirements. Keep government out of it.

Do you really advocate another complication to the tax code, or are you throwing out shit to see what sticks?

[Wild Cobra]

I put this here to point out something that makes libertarians squirm.


We are not individuals.

We form.... a society.

Almost everything we do or don't do affects others.

That means you have an interest in my affairs, and I have an interest in yours. Libertarians don't tend to understand economics well enough to grasp why this is.

I think you are applying your vision of a libertarian to what I would call an anarchist. Libertarians know we are a society, and that the line drawn of personal freedom is that which infringes on another persons personal freedom.

---FAIL---

Mandating such of people would be authoritarian. Allowing choice on the matter is OK with libertarians.

My insurance company asks my annual mileage, and I have my youngest daughter on my policy as well which I give a much higher estimate of mileage than myself on. She is seldom here now, but this is still her mailing address. She has a room, but effectively lives at her boyfriends. She is now 25.

I personally don't mind for insurance to want such information. i just don't believe it should be mandated, and if people choose to keep requested information secret, I have no problem with them having a higher competing set of rates to choose from.

Freedom and choice Random... Stop being authoritarian.

[RandomGuy]

Fine. let the health insurers decide the criteria and requirements. Keep government out of it.

Do you really advocate another complication to the tax code, or are you throwing out shit to see what sticks?

Because private industry does so well when we give them power and information asymmetry.

You trust a large corporation whose management is more concerned with lining their own pockets and next quarters dividends to be making your decisions for you?

Polly Peck
Bank of Credit and Commerce International
Nordbanken
Carrian Group
Barings Bank
Long-Term Capital Management
Equitable Life Assurance Society
HIH Insurance
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
One.Tel
WolrdCom
Enron
Chiquita Brands Int
Adelphia Communications
Arthur Anderson
Bre-X
Parlamat
Bayou Hedge Fund Group
Refco
Bear Stearns
Northern Rock
Lehman Brothers
ABN-Amro
AIG
Bernie Madoff


etc.

etc.

etc.

You would have us give our trust in a system run by profit motives, simply because of your ideological hangups?

Really?

How do you propose that to work?

[RandomGuy]

I think you are applying your vision of a libertarian to what I would call an anarchist. Libertarians know we are a society, and that the line drawn of personal freedom is that which infringes on another persons personal freedom.

That line is not quite so clearly marked in this case.

As has already been pointed out, as clearly as possible, your decision to conceal your risks costs everybody else money. This is the same for free market insurance as for government programs.

I don't like to subsidize free loaders. :p:

That impinges on my financial freedom, doesn't it?

[boutons_deux]

You run like a little bitch when you see content from me. Nothing new.
Coward

Tab :lol

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Risk factors are risk factors.

They tell you, in the broad actuarial sense, the odds of someone developing a disease.

Right now, we all pay for the cost of every disease out of pocket. Insured or uninsured, it all has costs.

Those costs are measured, and form the basis of all actuarial science.

X disease, costs, on average, Y dollars.

X disease has Z chance of happening to any given person in a large population. If you can more accurately group people you WILL more accurately determine how much their diseases will cost the system and the economy.

Further, most cost/benefit calculations for tests assume some kind of with an average (total population) propensity for developing a disease. If you know your odds are MUCH greater than normal, the calucations as to how much/often you should be tested change. We as a society should be willing to bear these costs, as prevention is almost always cheaper than treatment.

At best it's mixing correlation with causation. I'm just not a fan of compelling people to participate in medical trials because you have correlated DNA sequences with types of cancer. I am much more interested in the work going towards establishing mechanics and cause. Cement the hypothesis.

I don't see any evidence that a compulsion is necessary to have a sufficient sample size.

[Wild Cobra]

Because private industry does so well when we give them power and information asymmetry.

You trust a large corporation whose management is more concerned with lining their own pockets and next quarters dividends to be making your decisions for you?

-list-

You would have us give our trust in a system run by profit motives, simply because of your ideological hangups?

Really?

How do you propose that to work?
Where did i ever give indication I trust corporations?

I just want a limited government, and less authoritarianism.

Don't you want more personal freedom? For you to accuse me of something unrelated because you don't like what I say if baffling.

[Wild Cobra]

That line is not quite so clearly marked in this case.

As has already been pointed out, as clearly as possible, your decision to conceal your risks costs everybody else money. This is the same for free market insurance as for government programs.

I don't like to subsidize free loaders. :p:

That impinges on my financial freedom, doesn't it?

Are you on the record here as stating that concealing a statistic point is on par with concealing a fact?

[TeyshaBlue]

:cry I can't post a cogent, original thought. :cry

Did you even read the poll you posted, maran?

[TeyshaBlue]

Are you on the record here as stating that concealing a statistic point is on par with concealing a fact?

lol binary

[DarrinS]

I put this here to point out something that makes libertarians squirm.


We are not individuals.

We form.... a society.

Almost everything we do or don't do affects others.

That means you have an interest in my affairs, and I have an interest in yours. Libertarians don't tend to understand economics well enough to grasp why this is.

Case in point:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/how-a-creepy-car-insurance-idea-could-save-thousands-of-lives-and-the-planet/265745/

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2012/11/CarAccidents-thumb-615x364-107036.png



It works no different for health insurance and health costs.

We have medicare/-aid to make sure that people who work can get this insurance. We all pay into that system one way or another.

If you develop cancer and cost that system, we all pay for it. Therefore we all have a solid interest in making sure you do things to reduce the risk to yourself.

This would work the same even in the absence of those government programs.

The only way to decouple this is to allow hospitals to let sick people die if they can't pay.



Just kill all the people with inferior genetics. Problem solved.

[rjv]

what do these risk factors take into consideration regarding the actual process of carcinogenesis itself ? i'm just curious as it seems there are still assumptions about the process of cancer itself. are we dealing with darwinian models here? not to mention the fact that we are still dealing with a non-linear dynamic in a complex system. i just can not be convinced that probabilty can lead to anything more than informing an individual that they may be more prone to certain types of cancer (which, really..couldn't a genetic screening already give one a pretty good indication of these risks?).