Dear Ms. Swenson,
As a UC Berkeley alumnus (now at the U of A for graduate school), I have tosay that the alarmist tone of your article does the issue a bit of adisservice. While I agree that the program should be scrapped on financialgrounds – the University is desperate for money following years of recessionand California’s budget chaos – better arguments could have been made forand against the program.
For example: screening for genes relating to alcohol breakdown couldpotentially encourage irresponsible and excessive risk-taking among studentswho discover they have “”better”” or more active alcohol dehydrogenases. Thecontext in which the results are presented is therefore extremely important,although from my experience there I can say that many students outside ofthe biological sciences probably can’t be bothered to take the issueseriously even if it is presented properly. However, your argument thatreading books is more scholarly than a cheek swab is something of a strawman; reading a book without thinking critically about it is about as useful(and far more time consuming!) as getting a genetic screen. The importantpart is what students *do* with the information they’ve acquired. Debate isan ancient art that seems lost in modern America; encouraging students totalk about the usefulness of these tests, the implications of having themdone on a broad scale, and how to interpret and use the results is the aimof the program. In this respect, it seems to have worked far better thanits creators intended, given the fact that people at other universities arewriting editorials to discuss the issue.
The idea behind the program – that rapid technological advancements comewith a host of moral and ethical quandaries which need to be discussed – isactually quite sound. However, if this program is anything like the booklists we were faced with, its biggest failing will be the lack of aframework in which students can actually discuss it. Many students willprobably forget all of the results but the alcohol ones and fail to actuallydiscuss any of the issues raised by personalized medicine: what are thelimitations of genetic information in treatment settings? How are geneticrisk factors influenced by environment? How will easy access to geneticscreens influence decision-making by patients with little to no backgroundin biology and only limited ability to interpret their results? And so on.Indeed, one could (rightly) point out that these questions could be raisedand discussed without the need to swab students’ cheeks, though it is truethat having such tests performed gives them a personal stake in the matter.
The fact that the program is completely voluntary is something you don’tgive it enough credit for. There was never any follow-through for thesummer readings lists as far as I know (I only read two books off of mine,since the rest didn’t interest me), and no incentive to participate. If UCBerkeley is pressuring students to participate in the program and punishingthem for failing to do so, then legal actions should be taken to block it.After all, in a world of personalized medicine, it is important for apatient to have some idea of who has access to his or her geneticinformation and what those people can do with it. Would you really want aninsurance company to know that you carry genes that predispose you todeveloping Alzheimer’s or lung cancer? If presented in that light, I thinkthese tests could encourage students to consider the drawbacks of suchinformation being available and take a more active role in determining whohas access to it.
Of course, regardless of the high-minded aims of this program (or thefailings in its execution), I think most students will just end up being init to see how wasted they can get.
Thanks for your time,
– Andrew Brennan