{"id":2898,"date":"2015-04-28T16:10:24","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T15:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=2898"},"modified":"2015-04-28T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T15:14:08","slug":"my-one-appearance-in-cosmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2015\/04\/28\/my-one-appearance-in-cosmo\/","title":{"rendered":"My One Appearance in &#8220;Cosmo&#8221;&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; and they go and screw it up.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks (months?) ago, I got a call from\u00a0<em>Cosmopolitan<\/em> to ask if I&#8217;d talk about home-testing kits for genetics &#8211; stuff like what 23andMe offers. \u00a0We talked, and I like to think that I said something useful&#8230; and promptly forgot all about it, until just now, when the University of Manchester press office sent me a link to <span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cosmopolitan.co.uk\/body\/health\/news\/a35312\/hiv-self-testing-kits-go-on-sale-in-the-uk\/\">this<\/a><\/span>: a story about HIV self-testing kits in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a piece that quotes me. \u00a0It quotes me from that interview I did about genetic &#8211; genetic! &#8211; tests:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iain Brassington, Healthcare Ethics professor at the University of Manchester told\u00a0Cosmo Body:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People invest a lot in genetic information and it could have a serious psychological impact. Someone could feel anxious, distraught, even suicidal if they find out they are carrying a gene associated with particular diseases.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Can you see the problem here?<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the fact that I&#8217;m not, and am unlikely soon to be, a Professor, I mean?<\/p>\n<p>OK: for clarity&#8217;s sake (and just in case there are any\u00a0<em>Cosmo<\/em> readers who&#8217;ve drifted here): genetic tests and HIV tests are VERY DIFFERENT THINGS, and raise CORRESPONDINGLY DIFFERENT PROBLEMS. \u00a0I don&#8217;t think that HIV is a genetic condition. \u00a0Only idiots think that. \u00a0Some of the problems with one might well be problems with the other. \u00a0But we can&#8217;t leap between the two so\u00a0easily. \u00a0I don&#8217;t know what I think about home HIV tests; I&#8217;ve not thought about them much, and noone&#8217;s asked me to have an opionion on them yet. \u00a0THIS QUOTATION MAKES ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT.<\/p>\n<p>Also, they put words in my mouth. \u00a0I can&#8217;t remember what I said, but I doubt it&#8217;d&#8217;ve been anything as fatuous as &#8220;Someone could feel anxious, distraught, even suicidal if they find out they are carrying a gene associated with particular diseases.&#8221; \u00a0That&#8217;s simply not the kind of thing I say.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I&#8217;m posting here shamelessly, because I don&#8217;t want that particular piece to appear if people Google me without some kind of balancing act. \u00a0And I&#8217;m posting a screengrab just below the fold for posterity&#8217;s sake, just in case <em>Cosmo<\/em> deletes the page.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/files\/2015\/04\/Cosmo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2899\" src=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/files\/2015\/04\/Cosmo-236x300.jpg\" alt=\"Cosmo\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/files\/2015\/04\/Cosmo-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/files\/2015\/04\/Cosmo.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; and they go and screw it up. A few weeks (months?) ago, I got a call from\u00a0Cosmopolitan to ask if I&#8217;d talk about home-testing kits for genetics &#8211; stuff like what 23andMe offers. \u00a0We talked, and I like to think that I said something useful&#8230; and promptly forgot all about it, until just now, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2015\/04\/28\/my-one-appearance-in-cosmo\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2141,511,1266,407],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratuitous-misuse-of-the-blog","category-in-the-news","category-shameless-self-publicity","category-wtf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}