We Have “Gifted” Enough: Indigenous Genomic Data Sovereignty in Precision Medicine

^{Photo by Andrew James on Unsplash}

In “Obligations of the ‘Gift’: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Precision Medicine,” Lee (2021) rightly points out that disparities in health care access also lead to disparities in precision medicine research participation. Lee (2021) adds that an emphasis on individual consent among research ethics fails to adequately address Indigenous expectations for the governance of research specimens. As Lee summarizes in their conclusion, it is important to account for the ways that “group history and structural inequities” (64) continue to shape 21st century advances in medicine. While Lee frames their discussion within the context of clinical practice and the US healthcare system, our commentary extends consideration of the conditions that impact Indigenous participation in precision medicine research and also the potential benefits derived from it. We argue that Lee’s paper (not unlike much of the field of precision medicine) takes for granted the colonial power relations that shape the aforementioned structural inequities as the basis of Indigenous peoples’ relationship to health care systems. We contend that such erasure of the ongoing resistance...