Her husband Don Reed is a 10-year colon cancer survivor who suffers from neuropathy, a nerve condition that causes severe foot pain for which there is no approved treatment. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” she said in an interview. They have been members of the health plan since 1992.Ĭleo Reed first read about the upcoming research program in a newsletter to members and called to find out where to sign up even before Kaiser was ready to roll out the survey. Both 72 and retired, the couple said they are thrilled to help Kaiser. That isn’t stopping Don and Cleo Reed of Concord from participating. Translating that research into clinical applications to help the very people who will donate DNA for the project could take much longer. Preliminary results could come as soon as several years from now, Schaefer said. The studies are expected to be funded by the National Institutes of Health or disease associations. Research projects using the patient information and DNA samples will begin in the next year to five years. It will make personalized medicine a reality.” “It means right person, right disease, right drug, right dose. “What does that mean?” Kessler asked at a news conference in Oakland announcing the initiative. David Kessler, dean of the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Understanding the interchange between genes, health and the environment is leading to breakthroughs in personalized medicine, said Dr. Senate recently passed a similar measure but it has not yet been taken up in the House. “It can’t be used to deny coverage or change insurance.”Ĭalifornia law protects people from being discriminated against in the workplace and among health insurers because of their genetic information. “Patients will be fully informed,” Schaefer said. Information may be shared with researchers at other universities and research institutes in collaborative projects, excluding individual patient identifiers. So, for instance, researchers studying asthma would look at participating Kaiser members’ genes, as well as their lifestyle, diet and exposure to air pollution, said lead co-investigator Catherine Schaefer. The idea is to build upon the successes of the Human Genome Project and drill down into the nuanced interactions of disease, the environment and an individual person’s genetic makeup. “It’s a grand vision but the reality is we need to make the connections between genetics and environmental factors,” said Neil Risch, lead co-investigator for the project, called the Kaiser Research Program on Genes Environment and Health. Kaiser has raised $7 million from private foundations for the initial recruitment and start-up phase of the project. Kaiser is hoping that upwards of 500,000 members will agree. The project, if members agree to opt-in, will be among the largest in the world and possibly the most diverse in terms of richness of medical data at scientists’ fingertips and the ethnic and age distribution of study subjects.Ībout 2 million members will receive a letter and survey in the mail in the next few weeks asking for their participation. Kaiser Permanente is embarking on a massive decades-long research project to study the genetic and environmental factors that cause common conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression and is asking 2 million Northern California members to participate.
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