Genetic testing has been transformed from a clinical procedure to a consumer good that people can use to explore their ancestry or health risks with the help of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe.
Criminal justice systems have used the technique to track down criminals through DNA sequencing, a process that has led to the arrest and conviction of millions of criminals.
However, there have been concerns about the protection of genetic data and China’s use of surreptitiously collected DNA to detain its ethnic Uighur population in re-education camps.
The advent of polygenic scores, which can be used to calculate the risk of developing diseases such as heart disease and breast cancer, could lead to a paradigm shift in which people take pills to stave off disease according to their genetic risk.
As genetic data on millions of people has become available, it has expanded the power of polygenic scores, but it also amplifies the ethical concerns because such genetic inheritance as infotainment raises big questions.
The potential for genetic discrimination is only becoming more real in the US, and the nation’s aging legal structure may need to be changed to deal with this.