For-Profit Company Seeks Genetics of Illnesses
JASON CARROLL, CNN ANCHOR: Your genes may be valuable to a new company. DNA Sciences is trying to find the genetic causes of illnesses, but the work is very controversial. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen explains why.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This man wants your DNA. Peggy Cox is giving hers to a for-profit company called DNA Sciences. They're recruiting over the Internet. Anyone can do it: Check off the conditions and diseases you and your family have, and DNA Sciences will send someone to take your blood.</s>DR. HIGH RIENHOFF, DNA SCIENCES, INC.: We're looking at their genes and seeing if the affected people and the unaffected people have different sets of gene variants.</s>COHEN: The goal is to find genes linked to a whole host of illnesses, such as heart disease and cancer, and then come up with drugs to act on that genetic information. Participants are not paid. Cox gave blood because she has multiple sclerosis.</s>PEGGY COX, DNA DONOR: We need more effective treatments, and I don't think those treatments will be forthcoming until we understand the genetics of</s>MS. COHEN: But some geneticists are skeptical about whether this plan will work. One concern...</s>STEPHEN WARREN, EMORY UNIVERSITY: What people know about their own family history is not very precise or accurate, and it's more or less hearsay or family lore that's been passed down. And that's the opposite of what we would like to obtain, which is very precise clinical data.</s>COHEN: So Warren says, without good data...</s>WARREN: Doing a survey like this is essentially like garbage in- garbage out: Your outcome is only as good as the data you're obtaining.</s>COHEN: But according to DNA Sciences, people are accurate reporters of their family and personal history. And they've addressed another concern: They say people shouldn't worry about giving out personal health information on the Internet.</s>REINHOFF: We've taken great pains to provide confidentiality and security to their information and to any genetic information we generate from their blood.</s>COHEN: Reinhoff won't say how many people have given blood yet -- they're still recruiting -- but he says it'll take several years to come up with any findings about genetics and disease. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.