I’m not going to change; I’m very stubborn in this way. I am what I am.
Our understanding of how DNA informs our health and development is advancing at an incredible pace.
Everyone’s going to die, and everyone’s going to get sick at some point. But I do believe that there are choices you can make in life that will make you as healthy as possible.
I do let the kids play on devices when we eat out – it’s better than being thrown out of a restaurant.
It’s not just professional athletes and soldiers who are at risk from traumatic brain injury. More than 1.7 million people a year sustain a traumatic brain injury, and about 50,000 of them die each year, according the Centers for Disease Control. There are both emotional and financial costs from these injuries.
Some genetic variants can be informative about one’s risk for Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
The goal of having more and more information is really to better be able to predict what is your health outcome going to be.
Employment and health insurance are now protected by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder.
If you are somebody who has a disease, you are not complaining when someone starts to do work for you. That is your hope.
Every couple of weeks, someone writes in and says, ’23andMe saved my life.’
Big challenges are an accumulation of small challenges.
I don’t necessarily want my physician making all my decisions.
A few small changes in your DNA can turn your eyes blue, make you lactose intolerant or put some curl in your hair.
I have mothers with small children come to me and say, ‘You found that I had early breast cancer – because of you, I don’t have cancer.’ You’ve just prevented that person from dying early, and to prevent an early, unnecessary death is incredibly meaningful.
When I graduated from college in 1996 and the Internet was taking off, I remember this feeling that there was an open range where anything could be built.
If health care is a $2.7 trillion industry, and a huge percentage is paid by the government, then you have to be involved in politics to make a difference.
I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about genetic information and what you can and cannot learn. One of the things we try to do is educate individuals that knowing information is empowering.
My family and I were some of the first people to be genotyped.
A solid foundation in genetics is increasingly important for everyone.
The reality is that the only way change comes is when you lead by example.
Part of the beauty of Silicon Valley is that people generally encourage you to think crazy. It’s the hypothesis that there’s nothing sacred that can’t be changed.
You can get so much value just from being genotyped.
All the kids from my nursery school are still in touch.
Data helps solve problems.
FDA clearance is an important step on the path towards getting genetic information integrated with routine medical care.
There’s clearly things you can do in your environment to try to prevent disease, and I want to know what those things are.
You are not just about death and disease.
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