Roderick Washington
Strayer University
Dr. Danielle Van
SCI 115
December 18, 2012
How Will Genetic Technology Shape Personalized Medicine / what are the Benefits? What is personalized medicine? “Medicine using genetic profile: the prevention, detection, and treatment of disease taking into account a person's unique genetic profile”1.With the ever changing and mixing of different racial backgrounds, the need to make medicines that are more suited to the individuals that consume them will keep the drug makers of the future very busy. Healthcare is tailored to the term of personalized medicine when it pertains to humans and the benefits that they bring. The whole meaning is to take the different ways certain diseases …show more content…
When using genetic technology in personalized medicine is that some patients may receive incorrect information about their disease risk. This will bring up liability issue for them providing and prescribing the wrong preventive drug that may cause the individual to have severe to fatal side effects. The information can be falsely given but the patient has the burden of proof when it comes to filling a claim for negligence. This genetic testing that would lead to personalized medicine also causes the potential risk of stress on a patient when you put the thought into their heads that they may contract a certain disease that may be life threatening. There are many other drawbacks. The question of how accurate the tests are comes into play, being that there is no accuracy measurement in place for most. When given the results “Say you are tested for the potential for lung cancer, and learn that you might develop it someday. You decide not to smoke and you don’t develop it. But you can’t now know whether the test was right or wrong to begin with because you took steps not to develop it.”(Torrey, 2010) You also need someone who is trained in translating the results for you. Also your privacy is really not yours because you’re DNA can also be like your social and be kept, sold, and they even may us it however they see fit for their personal gain. The HIPPA laws don’t cover genetic testing so you’re not protected at all. The main drawback right now is that they aren’t effective enough in the early stages of the development. In the future with more test and better laws in place Genetic testing will make the personalized healthcare business