President-elect Barack Obama’s victory was hailed as a sign that some Americans can look beyond race, but some Boston University professors wonder whether voter discrimination will someday shift from the color of candidates’ skin to the content of their genomes.
Standard media vetting already requires presidential candidates to release their health records, but the availability of new technologies could eventually lead to mandatory genome analysis to determine genetic predispositions, which BU professors George Annas and Robert Green said will only hurt and mislead voters in future campaigns.
‘Racism could be replaced by ‘geneism,” Annas, the health law, bioethics and human rights department chairman, said. ‘Instead of deciding that people’s abilities are based on the color of their skin, people’s abilities would be based on their genome.’
Genetic information will only feed prejudices against certain medical conditions, especially psychiatric ones that suggest a candidate is prone to risk-taking or novelty-seeking ideas, Annas said.’
‘Even though it’s not true, you can see a 30-second spot saying, ‘Here are his genes. He can’t help himself.” Annas said. ‘In elections that are decided by 53 percent of the population, that could matter.’
Annas and Green, who is also the Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical and Research Program co-director, published their views in the New England Journal of Medicine on Nov. 20.
BU health law professor Frances Miller said she thinks Annas and Green are attempting to stop something they view as a problem before it actually arises.
‘By writing an article like that, they want something out there in literature saying that genetics should have no place in presidential politics,’ Miller said.
President George W. Bush signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act in May, which bans the improper use of a person’s genetic information..
‘But that just says employers and insurance companies can’t use genetic information against you,’ Annas said. ‘But that doesn’t mean everybody else can’t.’
The discrimination is also problematic because predictions derived from genetic markers are flawed. Few diseases have a one-to-one correspondence between having the gene and contracting its disease, but the public views it as predictive because of the stigmas surrounding what it means to be ‘genetic,’ Green said in an email.
‘Most of the genetic markers currently being uncovered are risk genes, meaning that while they increase or decrease the risk of certain health outcomes, they do not predict anything with certainty,’ Green said.
The potential for misuse of genetic data is high for everyone, not only for ‘high-profile’ people, Green said.
454 Life Sciences global marketing head Ulrich Schw’ouml;rer said he does not think ‘a person’s health would affect their ability to bring improvement to people’s lives. 454 Life Sciences is a branch of the Roche Group, a biotech company that develops DNA sequencing systems.
‘Think of [Stephen] Hawking, the astrophysicist, who is heavily damaged by an illness, but who still has a brilliant head and helps the human race to improve their knowledge of the universe,’ Schw’ouml;rer said.
Genetic information, when evaluated alongside a patient’s medical history and lifestyle, will be a great tool for disease prevention, but this medical information should remain a private matter, Schw’ouml;rer said.’
‘Personal genetic data should only belong to the person who has those genes, who owns that data,’ Schw’ouml;rer said. ‘Any information taken out of context without any scientific background, especially for genetic information, is not reliable.’