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A shot at the truth
EDITORIAL
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
A shot at the truth Scientific evidence on gun violence has been suppressed for too long LOVE it or loathe it, there is no over evidence-based politics. denying that the US National The NRA presents itself as Rifle Association (NRA) has been a civil rights group dedicated stunningly successful in its efforts to upholding and defending to fight gun control. In the 1990s, the Second Amendment to it even managed to largely shut the US Constitution – the one down US government research about the right to “keep and into gun violence as a publicbear arms”. The gun lobby health problem – an unbelievable interprets this as an inalienable situation that still stands today. individual right to own guns. This is why President Obama’s “The National Rifle clear instruction to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Association’s strangling of research is utterly to initiate research into reducing reprehensible” gun violence is important and necessary (see page 6). But it is only the first step. Although the NRA was founded Deciding whether to fund the on this platform, it is important to research will be down to Congress, recognise that it has strong links where the NRA’s influence still to the firearms industry, which holds strong. supplies it with millions of dollars If the NRA succeeds in blocking in funding. this attempt to bring science to Viewed from this perspective, bear on America’s gun problem, the NRA’s strangling of research it will be another demoralising is utterly reprehensible. Imagine example of the power of money if a group associated with food
manufacturers were able to curtail research on obesity, or if tobacco interests had nixed the science that tied smoking to lung cancer. Hopefully we will now get some fresh answers on the best approaches to preventing gun violence. But if this knowledge is to be acted on, politicians and the public on both sides will need to abandon entrenched positions. Liberal opponents of the gun lobby often assume that the answer lies in tougher restrictions on ownership – but that isn’t necessarily where the biggest gains could be made. Advocates for gun rights must accept that public-health researchers aren’t the stooges of a sinister bureaucracy intent on seizing their guns. They are professionals trying to use the scientific method to save lives. They should be set free to do this work, and then listened to. n
DNA secrets? Don’t flatter yourself IMAGINE donating your DNA to a project aimed at discovering links between genes and diseases. You consent to your genome sequence being released anonymously into the public domain, though you are warned there is a remote possibility that it might one day be possible to link it back to you. A few years later, that remote possibility comes to pass. How should you feel? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. About 50 people who participated in a project called 1000 Genomes have been traced (see page 8). The researchers’ intentions were honourable. They have not revealed these identities, and the original data has been adjusted to make a repeat using the same technique impossible.
All they wanted to do was expose privacy issues. Consider them exposed. It is clear that genomics has entered a new phase, similar to that which social media went through a few years ago, when concerns were raised about people giving away too much personal information. What happens when the same applies to our DNA? Having your genome open to public scrutiny obviously raises privacy issues. Employers and insurers may be interested. Embarrassing family secrets may be exposed. But overall, personal genetic information is probably no more revealing than other sorts. In fact there are reasons to believe that it is less so: would an insurance company really go to the trouble
of decoding a genome to discover a slightly elevated risk of cancer or Alzheimer’s disease? The available evidence suggests not. In 2006, Harvard University set out to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and make them publicly available, along with personal information such as names and medical records. One of the goals was to see what happens when such data is open to all. The answer seems to be “not a lot”. So far this Personal Genome Project has published 148 people’s full genomes. Not one volunteer has reported a privacy issue. This is not a reason for complacency, but it suggests that our genomic secrets are less interesting to other people than we might like to believe. n 26 January 2013 | NewScientist | 3
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2013 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
A shot at the truth Scientific evidence on gun violence has been suppressed for too long LOVE it or loathe it, there is no over evidence-based politics. denying that the US National The NRA presents itself as Rifle Association (NRA) has been a civil rights group dedicated stunningly successful in its efforts to upholding and defending to fight gun control. In the 1990s, the Second Amendment to it even managed to largely shut the US Constitution – the one down US government research about the right to “keep and into gun violence as a publicbear arms”. The gun lobby health problem – an unbelievable interprets this as an inalienable situation that still stands today. individual right to own guns. This is why President Obama’s “The National Rifle clear instruction to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Association’s strangling of research is utterly to initiate research into reducing reprehensible” gun violence is important and necessary (see page 6). But it is only the first step. Although the NRA was founded Deciding whether to fund the on this platform, it is important to research will be down to Congress, recognise that it has strong links where the NRA’s influence still to the firearms industry, which holds strong. supplies it with millions of dollars If the NRA succeeds in blocking in funding. this attempt to bring science to Viewed from this perspective, bear on America’s gun problem, the NRA’s strangling of research it will be another demoralising is utterly reprehensible. Imagine example of the power of money if a group associated with food
manufacturers were able to curtail research on obesity, or if tobacco interests had nixed the science that tied smoking to lung cancer. Hopefully we will now get some fresh answers on the best approaches to preventing gun violence. But if this knowledge is to be acted on, politicians and the public on both sides will need to abandon entrenched positions. Liberal opponents of the gun lobby often assume that the answer lies in tougher restrictions on ownership – but that isn’t necessarily where the biggest gains could be made. Advocates for gun rights must accept that public-health researchers aren’t the stooges of a sinister bureaucracy intent on seizing their guns. They are professionals trying to use the scientific method to save lives. They should be set free to do this work, and then listened to. n
DNA secrets? Don’t flatter yourself IMAGINE donating your DNA to a project aimed at discovering links between genes and diseases. You consent to your genome sequence being released anonymously into the public domain, though you are warned there is a remote possibility that it might one day be possible to link it back to you. A few years later, that remote possibility comes to pass. How should you feel? This is no longer a hypothetical scenario. About 50 people who participated in a project called 1000 Genomes have been traced (see page 8). The researchers’ intentions were honourable. They have not revealed these identities, and the original data has been adjusted to make a repeat using the same technique impossible.
All they wanted to do was expose privacy issues. Consider them exposed. It is clear that genomics has entered a new phase, similar to that which social media went through a few years ago, when concerns were raised about people giving away too much personal information. What happens when the same applies to our DNA? Having your genome open to public scrutiny obviously raises privacy issues. Employers and insurers may be interested. Embarrassing family secrets may be exposed. But overall, personal genetic information is probably no more revealing than other sorts. In fact there are reasons to believe that it is less so: would an insurance company really go to the trouble
of decoding a genome to discover a slightly elevated risk of cancer or Alzheimer’s disease? The available evidence suggests not. In 2006, Harvard University set out to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and make them publicly available, along with personal information such as names and medical records. One of the goals was to see what happens when such data is open to all. The answer seems to be “not a lot”. So far this Personal Genome Project has published 148 people’s full genomes. Not one volunteer has reported a privacy issue. This is not a reason for complacency, but it suggests that our genomic secrets are less interesting to other people than we might like to believe. n 26 January 2013 | NewScientist | 3