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nome means living one's life according to such probabilities—exercising,
eating, and seeking the appropriate medical interventions accordingly.
“Everyone has something valuable,” 23andMe's Anne Wojcicki assures
us, “and that's your data.” 45 This notion draws on the logic of bio-
informatics, in which biomedical knowledge is made through the statis-
tical analysis and comparison of sequence data. For Nikolas Rose, the
important transformation here is the “creation of the person 'genetically
at risk'”—the construction of an individual on the basis of sets of risk
factors. 46 But there is a more fundamental transformation occurring
here too: the creation of a person as a set of statistics and probabilities.
Rose's “molecular optics” or “molecular biopolitics” is not just about
how to live with, interact with, and deal with risk, but also about how
to reimagine oneself as a statistical body, as Homo statisticus . 47
Ulrich Beck has argued that contemporary society is best understood
as a “risk society,” in which the fundamental problem is not the distri-
bution of “goods,” but rather the management of “bads.” In societies
plagued by crime, impending environmental disaster, and other “manu-
factured” risks, the emphasis falls on how such risks might be mitigated
and minimized. This mitigation is achieved through processes of “re-
fl exive modernity,” in which societies assess risk and take appropriate
action toward decreasing it (for example, regulations on certain kinds
of activities). 48 In personal genomics, this kind of risk thinking and risk
discourse is adapted to individual bodies—these companies and proj-
ects trade on the notion that the risks of disease can be measured and
minimized. Moreover, this thinking suggests a move toward “refl exive
biology,” in which individuals are able to measure and anticipate their
level of risk and take appropriate action to mitigate it (appropriate diet,
exercise, treatment, or testing). Refl exive biology is a set of practices
oriented toward the calculation of risks in order to be able to intervene
with preventative measures and treatments; the body is managed by
computing and tracking a set of statistics.
A 2009 paper from the J. Craig Venter Institute analyzed the accu-
racy of some personal genomic services:
Both companies report absolute risk, which is the probability
that an individual will develop a disease. Absolute risk is de-
rived from two parameters: “relative risk” and “average popula-
tion disease risk.” Relative risk is modelled from an individual's
genetics. Average population disease risk varies depending on
how one defi nes the population. For example, Navigenics dis-
tinguishes population disease risk between men and women
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