Obama may boost genetics’ health use
HealthMedicine may become more personalized

WASHINGTON — For years, scientists have held out hope that the rapidly evolving field of genetics could transform medical diagnosis and treatment.

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But the vision of custom treatment based on a patient’s genetic makeup and other biological markers has yet to materialize.

Government funding for research helped make possible many of the scientific gains in genetics, and Congress has passed landmark legislation outlawing discrimination against patients on the basis of genetic information.

But the mundane decisions, such as whether to pay for some genetic tests, have not progressed that smoothly.

For example, the FDA supported research that found certain genes can make some patients taking the blood thinner warfarin susceptible to potentially fatal bleeding. The agency has been pushing for some time to make doctors aware of genetic tests that could help their patients. But Medicare has not yet set a national policy on paying for the tests.

"Personalized medicine” is expected to get a major push from the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a senator, he introduced legislation to add support for private research. He remains keen on the idea.

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