Absolutism doesn't really help in crafting good policy. The threat that bad things could possibly, maybe happen isn't a good reason to stop chasing disease cures.
If we knew the ways vaccination programs would be abused, should we have refrained from inoculating so much of the world against polio?
It absolutely is and it's also the reason the FDA has a process you have to follow before doing human testing before potentially killing people with a new treatment you're trying to develop.
Correct, because we thought about the cost and risk of early human trials.
Which isn't the case here.
You're happy to forego any protection of the people involved.
I think the case is that people have put quite a bit of thought into costs and risks of big-data aggregation of DNA and come to different conclusions on what risks are realistic and what the consequences of those risks are.
"Which of my personal information is used for research?"
"Your genetic data and any other personal information you enter into the website, except for your Registration Information (name, contact information, and credit card information), may be analyzed in the research."
It really seems people are complaining because 23andme didn't demand they sign a consent for something they had already explicitly signed a consent to. I, for one, assumed large third-party pharmaceutical companies would have access to the data when I volunteered it. Is there significant risk people misunderstood that? How?
