Study: Americans Want to Know Their Genetic Codes

June 11, 2010

With all the nonstop news we hear about genetic medicine—a gene discovered here! a new genetic test developed there!—it’s easy to forget that our intro to this mesmerizing field of medicine happened only very recently. It was just seven years ago, in April 2003, that the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium announced that it had successfully sequenced the entire human genome (a first draft was published in 2001). Over the last decade, much has transpired: genes connected to a vast array of human diseases have been uncovered, animal and plant genomes have been unraveled (cow and corn among them), and DNA testing companies have entered the marketplace. Now researchers are learning more about what the public thinks of all this, too. One significant finding: Americans want access to their personal-health blueprints. (Newsweek)