2021-06-27
Brain Gerrish of UK Column discusses with researcher Debi Evans the upwardly mobile genomics industry in the United Kingdom, and where it's going, and how a data bonanza derived from the massive government Covid testing programme may be feeding it with all our DNA.
Whilst I am sure that they are probably on the right track, I can't help but think back twenty years to 1990s/ 2000s when the first mappings were undertaken. At the time the newspapers were full of articles that promised tailored medicines for the individual and novel cures for all sorts of diseases, and here we are in 2021 rebooting the whole tired narrative.
Since that time it has become clear that our genes are not the be-all-and-and-all, but can get turned on and off by factors in our environment, upbringing, and who knows what else. I look forward to these scientists mapping the ins and outs of all 3 billion base pairs and all possible combinations (on or off) thereof. Once they've done that, they could make a start on the 100 trillion bacteria in our gut that are also critical to our health . . .
Now don't get me wrong - "if at first you don't succeed try again" is a laudable concept - but the simple fact that this has all the appearance of a full-throated government public-private partnership to put Great Britain in the global driving seat to bring genome-based medicine to a grateful world doesn't actually fill me with any confidence. PPI schemes have not exactly been famous for achieving value for money for the tax-payer - why would this be any different?
However it will undoubtedly be milked for all the propaganda value in an attempt to bolster the collapsing credibility of our medical industry, and I fully expect that over the course of time it will divert enormous quantities of public money towards that same industry.
The other rather alarming probability is that this genome data will find its way to the security services to be used to support their purposes. After all, where are now the effective checks and balances which at least nominally used to regulate our state institutions and protect our freedom?
