If we don’t own our genes, what protects study subjects in genetic research?

On February 25, the White House hosted a forum on the National Institute of Health’s Precision Medicine Initiative. This is an ambitious research study that aims to develop targeted drugs and treatments that would vary from individual to individual.

To reach the goal of eventually being able to make specific recommendations for patients based on their own combination of genes, environment and lifestyle, researchers plan to collect that kind of information from one million Americans. The study is so large so results can account for diversity among Americans with respect to factors such as ancestry, geography, and social and economic circumstances.

At the forum, President Obama remarked “I would like to think that if somebody does a test on me or my genes, that that’s mine.”

Lots of people would make that same assumption – it seems sensible that we would each “own” our genetic information. But the legal reality is quite different. And that could turn out to be a problem, because research projects like the Precision Medicine Initiative rely on research participants trusting that their...