President Obama favors Individual’s Right on Genetic Information

President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative after its success has raised debate on whether the data collected by it will belong to consumer or the organization. Precision Medicine Initiative has been developed to collect genetic data on one million American volunteers so that scientists can develop drugs and treatments tailored to individual patient.

“I would like to think that if somebody does a test on me or my genes, then that’s mine, but that’s not always how we define these issues,” said President Obama on Thursday during a White House forum on the major biomedical research initiative he began last year. The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday suggested that patients should have access to their medical records, including genomic testing results.

The National Institutes of Health declared on Thursday that Vanderbilt University and Verily will together build a group of one million American volunteers, who will take part in the individualized medicine effort. The program will receive $200 million fund issued by President Obama. This program is to develop more efficient ways to treat wide variety of diseases.

Presently, data collected through gene testing by many researchers, universities and medical centers is considered as their own property by these groups and also don’t prefer sharing that not even with the individual with whom DNA belongs to. However, this practice has been criticized by consumer groups and some health advocacy organizations. They believe the individuals have right to own the data and discoveries originated from them.

The Precision Medicine Initiative is designed to device treatment based on individual characteristics. It will determine genetic as well as factors such as environmental exposures and their impact on genetic predispositions to seek results.