Video presentations: Personalized Medicine: are we ready?
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Question and answer (Q and A) session
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- Opening the Q&A Session
- Stephen Chanock poses a question to the panel
- Tom Hudson asks two questions of the panel
- Anthony Brookes presents the panel with a two-part question for discussion
- How are environmental factors incorporated into direct-to-consumer genetic testing and what is the optimal way to measure personal exposure to environmental factors?
- Are the people who go out and seek direct-to-consumer genetic testing self-selecting as people who will take action based on the results of the test?
- Discussion of how direct-to-consumer tests are validated, how quality assurance is performed, and how accurate the test results are.
- As a medical professional, in the next ten years will I see a patient who has had direct-to-consumer genetic testing performed to know what drugs he/she is sensitive to - and ask to not be prescribed those drugs?
- Government regulation; self-regulation by companies; professional standards/professional organizations; consumer self-education. Of these four industry controls for maintaining standards in direct-to-consumer genetic testing, which is the key regulatory element?
- What will the effect of personalized medicine be on global health, including developing nations?
- What is the predictive value of genetic testing versus taking family history for disease prediction in an individual?
- If we are moving towards personalized medicine, how are we going to take this from theory into public health practice?
Also, what criteria are applied to determine which research findings should be published? - Do companies such as Navigenics and 23andMe track what motivates their customers to seek direct-to-consumer genetic testing? Also, do such companies conduct consumer focus groups to determine what the consumer is looking for in direct-to-consumer genetic testing?
- What are the legal ramifications of informing users that the results of direct-to-consumer genetic tests are for "educational purposes only"?
Also, what responsibility does a company such as 23andMe take for someone who is adversely affected by actions they choose to take based on results of their own direct-to-consumer genetic test? - Closing remarks.