Why Atlas Sports Genetics is scary and stupid
December 2, 2008
Full Title: Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing (aka: why Atlas Sports Genetics is scary and stupid)
Three things have led me to this post.
First, I read “Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene” in the NYtimes over the weekend and it definitely raised (and then spun in fancy pretty ways) red flags in my mind.
Second, for a class I’m taking through Harvard I have to do a large end of semester project on something that has changed substantially due to the “technological explosion. I’ve decided to do mine around the question, “How does direct-to-consumer genetic testing change individuals’ conception of self — both as individuals and as members of a larger society?” And I think consistently writing up my musings on the topic will help me more cogently and tightly express myself in that project.
Third, I’m committed to submitting a paper to this upcoming philosophy conference I’ve heard about. The conference is themed around, among other things, autonomy and moral obligation. So in other words, I’ve decided it’s high time I got my shit together and wrote something up based on the year-long project I’ve mentioned before. As a reminder, that project has to do with, again among other things, how my being a person who can live a flourishing (eudaimon) life depends in large part on my ability to have certain kinds of meaningful relationships with people in my community (which then I think gives rise to certainty responsibilities and obligations we have to each other). And I think genetic testing like the sort described in the article and generally provided by companies like 23andme has the power to alter my identity as both an individual – both understood in the discreet solo-going sense and in the member-of-a-larger-community sense.
Which is a long winded way of saying I think taking this sort of genetic testing seriously is critical if we want to make sure we give ourselves the chance to live good lives. And writing up little blog posts are small moves in the direction of writing up something presentable.
Alright with all that said, I want to go back to company featured in the NYtimes article – Atlas Sports Genetics.
- First, if you go to their homepage the first thing you see is an image of three blond kids in soccer uniforms. And under that it says “Genetic Testing for Speed/Power and Endurance Events”. So here’s my first piece of free advice – probably not a good idea to have only blond beautiful kids on your genetic testing for superior athletic performance website. You’re trying to get away from that whole evil eugenics thing, right? Alright take my advice – diversify that shit.
- Second, take a look at this graph that shows the relationship between genotype frequency and different elite athletes. Notice anything interesting? How about the fact that this test really doesn’t tell you much of anything about whether you’re genotype is shared by elite endurance athletes. And why is that? Because it seems there really isn’t a certain genotype (at least based on the ACTN3 gene) that is more frequent in elite endurance athletes than the controls. So I seriously have no idea what they’re talking about when they say having two copies of the R577X allele predispose you to endurance sports.
- Third, as was pointed out in the article, there exist examples of Olympians who have genes that, based on their test, would suggest they would be unsuccessful in their sport. Will this test create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. When a parent gets this test done on their children they won’t encourage their participation in certain sports – and so over time less and less children with the “wrong” genes do that sport. And so, over time, the top level performers in that sport only have the “right” genes… namely because nobody with with the “wrong” genes is doing it.
- Fourth, do we think parents should be getting these sorts of genetic tests done on their children? There’s no medical purpose and the child can’t autonomously agree to it.
- Fifth, how will this impact the relationship between parents and children. When a football-fanatical father finds out his son doesn’t have the “right” genes to play – how will that change their relationship?
There are lots of interesting questions here and with comments like,
“China and Russia, Mr. Epley [President of Atlas] said, identify talent in the very young and whittle the pool of athletes until only the best remain for the national teams. ‘This is how we could stay competitive with the rest of the world,” Mr. Epley said of genetic and physical testing. ‘It could, at the very least, provide you with realistic goals for you and your children.’”
I think we’re letting people frame them in pretty scary ways.
Comments
4 Responses to “Why Atlas Sports Genetics is scary and stupid”
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When parents encourage their kids to do sports that they always wanted to do, or be doctors because they want to be the parent of a doctor, there are serious problems. Parenting should be a process of guiding & directing your kids giving them positive & negative feedback on their behavior, good & bad respectively.
I don’t think getting this test is really going to make or break a child’s history. The toddlers don’t even have to know they were tested. If they can assure that 95% of olympians have a specific gene modification or whatever you call it, and that nobody who does well does not have it, then of course, encouraging someone who does not have it to do another sport isn’t going to hurt the playing field. It’s all about genetics — someone lacking slow twitch muscle fibers & poor motor skills in the lower extremities will never be able to be an elite endurance runner, ever, no matter what, no matter how hard they train.
I can ride my bike all day but I’m never going to catch up to Lance Armstrong in his prime. If I get genetically tested and someone tells me “nope, you don’t have what Lance does,” I can then turn around and say, OK that’s proven, now I will stop trying to do that. Obviously, proving the reason for me not reaching that goal after cycling for 4 years and reaching the point of diminishing returns in my training nowhere near Lance’s performance.
This is a lucrative business for someone to get into these days, especially for parents that want to better guide their kids in the best ways. It’s probably not the best thing for parents to do given that it encourages them forcing their kids into athletics. Nobody who is told something wants to do it for the rest of their life.. at least in my experience. Parents who monitor & direct every inch of their kids’ lives end up going astray once they move out. Parents who don’t involve themselves with their kids’ lives at all go astray before they move out. So you have to provide affirmation & positive feedback along the way.
But the consent of the kids comment does not make sense. The kids can’t make any informed decisions because they are not knowledgeable enough. Just like abortion laws… the kid can’t speak up for itself so let’s just kill it before it has a chance!!!
That’s my mind speaking Señorita Heather Whitney!!!
Thanks, David!
Some thoughts:
- I don’t know why there’s so much focus on only encouraging your kid to do a sport they could go to the Olympics for. I’m not built for long distance running or cycling (or, as far as I can tell, any sport for that matter) — but I’ve gotten an untold amount of value from doing both. If we start to frame our “what should our kids do” discussion around “what could they be Olympians in” I think we’ll start to discourage kids from doing a lot of things that are good for them — like trying a wide array of sports and activities generally, from not being the best (and I do think that this itself is a valuable lesson), from doing what they’re passionate about irrespective of what they’re naturally good “designed” to do.
And my comment about kids not consenting makes sense for exactly the reason you say it makes no sense! The whole point is these kids (as young as a few months old!) aren’t in a position to have an opinion (informed or otherwise) about being tested in this way. And there’s a question as to whether we think this sort of thing is an unnecessary invasion of their privacy (if we think of their genetic code as their own private information that only they should, baring medical issues, decide to get sequenced for things like this.)
Thanks, David! Seeing your long comment filled me with joy
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Pushing the worth of this test too hard would be foolish. A test like this would only make a difference if the child was going to be interested in doing sports that require high endurance at the professional level. The kind of training and life decisions required for that wouldn’t come into play until they were much older. If the child was interested in doing those activities anyway, it wouldn’t matter. They would be driven to try, and only if their body became an obstacle to their goal would this kind of information become relevant. If they aren’t interested, it wont matter.
Many children will obviously be very tall in their adult life. You get a free test from nature when you are significantly abnormally tall in your childhood. I am sure many are groomed to be basketball players, but they don’t all do so. They may develop any number of ambitions as they grow up. They are not dumb to it - I am sure the possibility of trying to play basketball professionally crosses their minds given their physical attributes, but it wont determine anything (whether their parents push them around or not). However, I suppose this is speculation. It would be interesting to track the lives of tall people and their parents in order to see how the potential effected their lives.
By the same token, I don’t think the information is necessarily harmful. It will be just another option to consider, like being very tall. Seeing such small bits of it in isolation is misleading at best, though. Maybe I only get the sports test and it turns out I have the endurance gene, but it also turns out my brain is determined in such a way that I will be an even better academic. But if a complete genetic map was available, would this really tell me anything new? If it works as people dream about it, it would tell me all the things I have a strong natural potential for. This kind of potential is often figured out in the normal course of life, though. People gather they are athletic or intelligent and factor these kinds of things into their decision-making already. Parents often notice these things and push their children. Would more refined, precise information do more for them? There will still be people who squander their potential or whose interests diverge from their natural talents. It cannot eliminate the contingencies involved, either. There is no guarantee, given I have any of these genes, that I will actually achieve greatness in the area I have a natural proclivity for.
“But you have the physical endurance gene! The great athletes of the world have it!”
“What, so I would make a good runner? I already knew that from running at school. I still don’t know what I want to do with myself, what I want to commit to…”