Why China Loves DNA Tests for Babies
Prognosis: Misconception
Bloomberg
4.1 • 838 Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2019
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chinese consumers, just like Westerners, are lining up for DNA tests. But unlike their American and European counterparts, the Chinese appear to have far fewer qualms about privacy and sharing their data. And what they’re expecting to glean from their genetic information goes far beyond family trees or hints of future disease. From assessing the talents of hours-old infants to making career and life decisions based on DNA tests, the Chinese have fully embraced the genetics boom.
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| 0:00.0 | The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. |
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| 0:23.2 | Follow the Big Take podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. |
| 0:31.0 | Nature versus nurture. |
| 0:34.3 | There have always been questions about which one contributes more to who we all become as adults. |
| 0:40.3 | But imagine a future where the way you're raised is based on your essential nature, |
| 0:45.0 | where your parents believe your genetic makeup is already pointing you to be a musician or a doctor or a math professor. |
| 0:52.9 | And they're just paving the way. |
| 0:55.0 | All of this is based on the results of a DNA test |
| 0:57.5 | that you got just hours after your birth. |
| 1:00.1 | In China, that future is happening now. |
| 1:04.4 | Welcome to Prognosis, Bloomberg's podcast |
| 1:07.0 | about the intersection of health and technology |
| 1:09.1 | and the unexpected places it's taking us. |
| 1:12.3 | I'm your host, Michelle Faye Cortez. |
| 1:17.7 | Throughout this season, you've heard about all the ways the proliferation of health care data, |
| 1:22.8 | especially from genetic testing, is creating opportunities and challenges. |
| 1:29.7 | That includes privacy concerns about who gets the information and how it's used. But that all-out embrace of DNA testing |
| 1:35.5 | is perhaps even more striking in China. This year alone, nearly 4 million Chinese are expected |
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