Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.

  • andybytes
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    11 hours ago

    I remember when I was younger and I was really learning about the capitalist system, but not from a communist point of view or a socialist point of view. I was just caught up with libertarianism and right-wing ideology and whatever, but nothing like it is today and I was learning about IBM and how they categorize the Jews in the camps. And then I realized all these corporations all have a legacy of brutality. There’s more to all this, and people are just not strong enough to accept what’s happening in our country. I’m a Libertarian Socialist.

    • cogman@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I literally had an econ professor years ago who directly told us “do not take a genetics test”. This was before the ACA

      The reason was simple. It’s information that once a private company gets a hold of it, they will use it to hurt you. Whether it’s a drug company that learns you’re predisposed to addiction, so better to give you it people around you nice temporary discounts on addictive meds, or an insurance company that learns you’re predisposed to cancer, so better to look for ways to deny or drop coverage.

      Once these companies know a little bit about your nature, they’ll exploit any aspect possible to increase profits.

      This was not a progressive/socialist econ professor. Just someone who knows how capitalism works.

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Unfortunately, it is too late. They don’t need your specific genetic code to extrapolate about you, just the code of one of your relatives who wanted to find out their heritage for fun.

        Without serious privacy laws we will be used and abused by corporations, get ready to experience Gattaca in real life.