Should presidential candidates' DNA be public?
Can you picture a future when some political operative swipes a presidential candidate’s strand of hair, decodes its genetic data, and predicts mental or physical danger based on the analysis?
Bioethicist George J. Annas and neurologist Dr. Robert C. Green of Boston University School of Public Health can.
Two months before Barack Obama takes the oath of office, the two prominent leaders are calling for ground rules on disclosing personal genomic information in the next presidential campaign.
“By then, advances in genomics will make it more likely that DNA will be collected and analyzed to assess genetic risk information that could be used for or, more likely, against presidential candidates,” they write in the New England Journal of Medicine.
There are two good reasons for candidates to make their genomes off-limits, Annas and Green say. First, presidents deserve some privacy when it comes to their health.
“There is some legitimate public interest in the president’s health, but there also is some privacy that even a president should have,” Annas said in an interview. “If for no other reason, I want my president to get all the medical help he or she needs without going through, ‘What would the public think if I go to a doctor, especially if I seek mental health care?’ ”
Then there’s the fact that no one really knows what someone’s genes really mean for the next four or maybe eight years, from cancer risk to Alzheimer's susceptibility.
“We still can’t learn a lot from these genomes, but we could have a tremendous amount of information that people are going to over-interpret,” Annas said. “We’re going to need some scientists who are non-partisan to authoritatively tell the public this is meaningless.”
Better yet, the candidates can preempt the process. They can pledge not to disclose their own information or use their opponents’.
Even in an age of negative ads and viral innuendo, it’s not all bad, Annas and Green write.
“The threat of genetic McCarthyism provides us with an opportunity to engage in a public dialogue about the limitations and complexities of using genomic information for decisions about life and health — including voting for our president.”
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Ahem - if the president's DNA were made public then he could be secretly replaced by a clone doing the bidding for our enemies. So, that alone is why this information should not be made public.
OK, that and privacy concerns.
The Republican hate machine has shown that even if the candidates promise not to use or reveal, the swift boaters will feel no obligation to honor those promises.
This is ridiculous. I only hope that this was considered as a facetious sort of allusion to why there needs to be greater funding for genetics research. I agree that genetics research is important, but this article highlights where it can cross the line.
Kozynferg, was that the same Republican hate machine who trashed Sarah Palin and John McCain for only giving a very brief health summary to the media?
Personally, I think I am damn well entitled to know if the President, or a candidate for President, is seeking mental health care.
Good grief! "Crossing the line is an understatement". Presidents' DNA is nobody's business now or ever. Are they insinuating that a presidential candidate would not be elected based on his genetics?
I can't recall any past president who flipped out of his gourd and put this country at risk due to mental problems. As for health problems, how can we deny someone like Franklin D. who was wheelchair bound the opportunity to run the country as well as he did.
I don't believe I'll look forward to the day when we'll all be swiped, decoded and
analyzed.
We’ve this far without needing to know the DNA of our Presidents, why start now? At some point we have to just step back and let nature, tradition and chance dictate whether or not a President is healthy enough to serve.
Although the President is the top of the office, he is a Federal employee and DNA testing is not done there as a condition of employment. I am not for any drug testing. Let employee performance dictate whether they are competent for the job. We should hold employee performance higher than it is. Make employees accountable for their behavior and hold the bar high.
To davevonnatick:
A "clone" doing the bidding of our enemies?
I think that you have been watching to much science fiction ("The Sixth Day" perhaps).
Clones will still have to grow to maturity, they will still have to be educated, fed, guided, etc.
This will not happen within the one or two terms that a person may serve as President - or even the 7 terms that someone could serve as Senator from Alaska, or the 8 terms of a Massachusetts Senator.
The real issues are privacy and the rights of the individual.
Only when every person in the USA can have their DNA released to the public should the President's also be released.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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