It’s rare that an opportunity like the one Covid just presented us with, comes along. In fact, in medical terms Covid was a first on so many different levels and the industry is still struggling to come to terms with it. For the general public it was a life threatening viral disease we were told posed a massive threat to society. For the health industry, it was a financial windfall of unprecedented proportions.
It wasn’t just about the money, but about data, or rather the harvesting of data, which, if you want to be a stickler about it, is really also just all about making more money. In an industry that relies on data for much of its product development, digital, pharmaceutical, technical or otherwise, he who holds the most data, calls the shots.
Nowhere is this more true than in the field of genomics. The strides we’ve made in the last 10 years alone have revolutionized our ability to analyze and sequence genetic information, or DNA. DNA is the code to the life that flows through your body and your DNA is unique to you. It is your genetic fingerprint and holds the key to diseases, inherited or otherwise, that you may or still will, suffer from.
With each advance in our ability to decode DNA we move closer and closer to identifying key genes responsible for, well, just about everything that occurs in our bodies. We’ve also discovered that having certain genes misfire can predispose us to certain medical conditions and it is not unlikely that, in the near future, this information will allow us, with a fair degree of accuracy, to determine a person’s life span, and more importantly, invent pathways to intervene around suffering and disease.
So why now and why Covid?
Well, we’re now post pandemic, things have moved on, and Covid tests are now available that can be run at home. All good and well, but what happened to the billions of laboratory run PCR swabs we submitted to earlier in the pandemic? While companies undertook to destroy these, at no point did any testing laboratory issue a clear undertaking to not harvest your DNA from said swab.
During the pandemic, almost every American was subjected to a PCR test, sometimes on multiple occasions. Your details, along with your swab, were sent off to a laboratory for testing. I wrote an article on this topic way back in 2020, warning the public of the potential abuse of their data. You can read that piece here.
To think that an opportunity like this, literally a once in a lifetime present for data harvesting, would have been overlooked, is so preposterously naïve as to be laughable.
Which then raises the following questions;
- Who orchestrated the collection of this data? Was it government based, industry based, or a combined effort.
- Your DNA profile would now reside alongside your personal profile (remember, your details were attached to that swab). Who legally owns this DNA profile?
- Are the companies/government willing to issue an assurance as to the ethical use of this data, thereby ensuring you are not discriminated against, based on your DNA profile?
- As the data would have been illicitly harvested without your informed consent, are these questions simply moot, as no one will publicly acknowledge this?
Make no mistake, this was the DNA jackpot and companies may utilize this data to sell you products, refuse you products, refuse you work, refuse you insurance, withdraw your driving license, confiscate any guns you own (as soon as genes are identified that predispose an individual to violence or mental instability), the list is endless and the data worth an untold fortune.
It is, from a financial standpoint, potentially the biggest haul of the pandemic, a gift that will continue to offer returns to companies and governments until you close your eyes one day for the final time, probably on a predetermined day.
So the issue here isn’t really about “IF” your DNA was harvested from the swab you provided, but rather “WHO” now holds that DNA profile. If you’re considering committing a crime, I’d think twice about it, as that single hair you leave behind at the scene will result in the police knocking on your door. Remember, they don’t have to explain how they found you.
Isn’t this a good thing for our health?
It absolutely should be, if the powers that be could be trusted to act ethically with the data. We could identify individuals who are prone to certain diseases and conditions and intervene at an early stage, potentially saving billions of dollars in healthcare. Sadly, trust and ethics, particularly in the case of healthcare and government, were early victims of the pandemic, as the public was lied to, manipulated and then coerced on multiple levels.
Lets take an example. A gene is identified that can predict with 90% accuracy the onset of Disease X in people over the age of 40. Based on the DNA profiles now on record, filters show that 42 million Americans will contract Disease X in the next ten years. A quick calculation shows that treating, rather than preventing the disease will generate 30 times the profit, versus developing a cure.
Sadly, our healthcare systems are not designed for ethics and philanthropy. For the most part, they are FIAT driven systems that pursue profit as their ultimate goal. Only a naïve, well intentioned simpleton would suggest the above example has anything other than one inevitable outcome and it certainly isn’t cure.
The fact that the data has been harvested without your consent is of course, the ultimate red flag. If the public would have stood to only benefit health wise from the sharing of genetic data, don’t you think we would already have volunteered it? No. Deep down inside, we know we can no longer trust the institutions tasked with our wellbeing. They know that we know.
