April 2001
Your Genetic Destiny for Sale
To find disease-causing genes, researchers want access to millions of personal medical records-maybe even yours. Is this necessary science or dubious profiteering?
By Gary Taubes
Large extended families have traditionally been the mother lode of genetic research. From them came a precious commodity: links between the presence of a disease and the errant genes responsible for it. When medical researcher Nancy Wexler, for instance, went looking for the genetic cause of Huntington's disease in 1979, it was a 9,000-member Venezuelan family that enabled her to trace the telltale patterns of disease inheritance.
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