Why Is The FDA Moving To Ban You From Freely Accessing Your Genomic Data?

Listed under Heartiste: 2011.Theme

From the original article on March 11, 2011. Author: Chateau Heartiste.

An FDA official has been caught on video in a lie under oath making claims about the research being done by genetic testing companies. The FDA is seeking to institute onerous regulations that would ban you from accessing your OWN genetic information without a doctor’s authorization, based on some flimsy justification that the data constitute a “medical device”. This is, in a word, tyrannical.

Any lover of liberty should be appalled by this move by the FDA. They — and make no mistake, the FDA poobahs are firmly entrenched members of the ruling elite; true Phase III overlords — are trying to restrict your access to your genetic profile. Want to know what your genes say? Too bad, you now need a doctor’s say-so before you can see that information. Want to know if that kid is yours? Not until a doc signs off on the testing, which, unsurprisingly, could take quite a long time after the red tape is disentangled and the lawyers have been paid.

Why is the FDA attempting this run-around basic human liberties? A few explanations jump to mind.

  1. It’s the smell of money. The FDA wants to hold onto its power as reviewer and arbiter of medical information. Cheap and easy genetic testing by startup companies threatens their stranglehold over the industry, and over your right to know your own goddamned genetic profile.
  2. Paternity testing is going to be big business, and the FDA and docs want in on it. As Bill said in a comment over at Steve Sailer’s site, “It’s a backdoor attempt to squeeze more money out of family law/child support issues. If any guy could send in a cheek swab of himself and his putative child to ascertain paternity in an open market, why, that’s hundreds of millions of dollars per year that would otherwise be handled by “qualified medical professional[s]” who would be assured a steady stream of court-ordered tests.”
  3. The feminists are grumbling, and that’s all the excuse the power-hungry FDA needs to restrict access to one’s genetic information. As predicted right here at the Chateau, a feminist utopia is one in which quick and easy paternity testing is banned or made difficult to acquire. It’s happening right before our eyes.
  4. The government (and this includes the FDA) is deathly afraid of what we all might find out by our sequenced genomes. Oh, it’s not the release of any one individual’s genome that bothers them; it’s the... ahem... impolite patterns and interpretations that can be discerned from the open knowledge of millions of sequenced genomes. The implications of this should be obvious to anyone who understands the fear that motivates the deceitful actions of the tabula rasa crowd.

Email this guy Shuren at jeff.shuren@fda.hhs.gov, the lead actor behind this push by the FDA to stifle knowledge. Tell him what you think of corrupt, lying bastards who try to suppress truth with the levers of the government.

You know, there was once a time when Americans could, with few exceptions, count on their government and those they elect to work for their interests, and not against them. Those days are long gone.

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