Genomics and Government

At the Personalized Medicine Coalition's The Age of Personalized Medicine blog, Sheila Walcoff, who once served as health and science policy counselor to former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, considers the impact that the dissolution of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society could have on the "promise of personalized medicine." Current HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her constituents, Walcoff says, are "losing a medium in which Administration policy could be addressed with substantial public and private sector input," though she's confident a new group of advisors will take the place of SACGHS because "with issues as broad and technical as genomics, and a government as big as ours, current and future government leaders will benefit from a critical base of advisors."