A Matter of Access?

Over at his blog this week, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein discusses the impact of genomic medicine on what he calls "the coming explosion in healthcare inequality." According to Klein, should genome-based medicine come to fruition, such that "we’ll be able to use the information contained in an individual's DNA sequence to target their therapies much more precisely," healthcare inequality will increase. Klein says that as personalized treatments come online, "we should expect that someone who can pay for the best treatments for their particular DNA sequences to achieve far better health-care outcomes than someone who can't afford the best treatments and has to settle for general therapies rather than individualized medicine." However, he adds that in the future, "to be sure ... both the poor and the rich" will receive better treatment than either group can access now.