This appeared last week.
Western Australia establishes precision health council for improved health outcomes
Early priorities of the council will include identifying and enhancing successful precision health initiatives already operating in WA's health system, and determining key areas that could benefit from increased integration of precision health measures.
By Dean Koh
April 26, 2019 02:53 AM
Earlier this week, the Western Australia (WA) Government announced the establishment of a new Ministerial Council that will advise the State Government on opportunities to further develop and support precision health advances.
Precision health uses new and emerging technologies to enhance disease prevention and early detection, and improve patient outcomes through treatments tailored to patients' individual genetic profiles, as well as their variable responses to the environment and lifestyle.
The Precision Health Council will be chaired by South Metropolitan MLC Kate Doust and is expected to hold its first meeting within the coming months.
According to the official statement, the council will comprise stakeholder representatives from medicine, science, industry, Aboriginal health, patient organisations, medical research and commercialisation, as well as experts from key precision health-related technologies of genomics, phenomics, informatics and geographical information systems.
More here:
Sadly the myHR just is not the place to store detailed complex health information, and probably never will be.
In passing it is important to note there are real risks with sharing your genetic information with anyone:
23 reasons not to reveal your DNA
April 2019
DNA testing is a booming global business enabled by the internet. Millions of people have sent samples of their saliva to commercial labs in hopes of learning something new about their personal health or heritage, primarily in the United States and Europe. In some places, commercial tests are banned. In France, you could face a fine of around $4,000 USD for taking one.
Industry giants Ancestry.com, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA market their services online, share test results on websites, and even offer tutorials on how to search for relatives in phone directories, or share results in social media. They often also claim rights to your genetic data and sell access to their databases to big pharmaceutical and medtech companies.
In terms of internet health, it’s part of a worrying trend of corporations to acquire personal data about people and act in their own best interests, not yours. OK, so test results can also lead to important discoveries about your personal health, and can also be shared for non-profit biomedical research in the public interest. But before you give in to your curiosity, here are 23 reasons not to reveal your DNA – one for each pair of the chromosomes in a human cell.
- The results may not be accurate. Some outputs on personal health and nutrition have been discredited by scientists. One company, Orig3n, misidentified a Labrador Retriever dog’s DNA sample as being human in 2018. As Arwa Mahdawi wrote after taking the test, “Nothing I learned was worth the price-tag and privacy risks involved.”
- Heritage tests are less precise if you don’t have European roots. DNA is analyzed in comparison to samples already on file. Because more people of European descent have taken tests so far, assessments of where your ancestors lived are usually less detailed outside of Europe.
- Your DNA says nothing about your culture. Genetic code can only tell you so much. As Sarah Zhang wrote in 2016, “DNA is not your culture and it certainly isn’t guaranteed to tell you anything about the places, history and cultures that shaped you.”
- Racists are weaponizing the results. White nationalists have flocked to commercial DNA companies to vie for the highest race-purity points on extremist websites.
Read the other 19 here:
These provide some serious food for thought I believe. Only let your genetic information out to those you trust. That probably should not be Ancestry.com!
David.
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