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The newest Apple Watch can now flag potential problems with your heartbeat - a feature that's been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and that Apple is marking as a major achievement. But some doctors said that including heart-monitoring tools in such a popular consumer product could prompt unnecessary anxiety and medical visits.
The company touted its heart-tracking feature as proof that the watch can help people proactively manage their health "The Apple Watch has become the intelligent guardian for your health," Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who oversees the development of the Apple Watch, said in the company's presentation of new Apple products this week.
[...] The FDA has cleared Apple's device as a Class II medical device, meaning that it is intended to diagnose or treat a medical condition and poses a minimal risk to use. (Other Class II devices include some powered wheelchairs and pregnancy kits, according to the FDA website.) In its letter to Apple clearing the feature, the FDA listed as a risk factor the potential for mistakenly flagging a problem, prompting unneeded treatment.
Source: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/What-cardiologists-think-about-the-Apple-Watch-s-13230271.php
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Monday September 17 2018, @02:39AM (6 children)
lays in the hand of those who control access.
I have had a number of "frustrated" medics telling myself and my colleagues that "access to genomic information will be a disaster". I'll not say when that statement was, but you'd all be surprised if I told you the audience.
Nevertheless, of course we should have the best quality data, especially with medicine a limited resource everywhere.
However, medicine is *massively* in need of a revolution - a vast amount of "normal" data is needed for *every* human before we can say something is abnormal.
The biggest problem with hospitals is they are full of *sick* people!!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 17 2018, @02:47AM (5 children)
I Am Absolutely Serious. My understanding is that it costs about a grand to sequence someone's DNA these days. That I haven't had it done already is largely because whenever I am in possession of a grand I find some way to spend it instead on hookers and blow.
While I can readily see that could cause problems for me, what I hope to achieve by doing so is to facilitate the development of an actual cure for my mental illness.
There is no cure for my Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder, nor is there any hoped-for cure on the horizon. The best that can be done is to treat my symptoms.
In addition to that, I do far, far better than all but a very few who share my diagnosis. Surely there is some reason for that; perhaps that reason can be discerned by studying my DNA.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by opinionated_science on Monday September 17 2018, @03:12AM (1 child)
use a health equity account. You can use the tax-free $$ to get a genome sequenced, assuming you can find a medic articulate enough to support the request.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 17 2018, @04:25AM
I'll do just that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Monday September 17 2018, @03:42AM
Well, when someone perfects cloning, you can be happy knowing they could make a new you (although then you get inot experience vs genetics in making you you)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 17 2018, @09:35AM (1 child)
More like a $100. And it's coming down. Soon tech that existed in gattica will be reality.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/illumina-wants-to-sequence-your-whole-genome-for-100/ [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday September 17 2018, @02:21PM
From your linked article:
>a new machine that the company says is “expected one day” to order up your whole genome for less than $100.
That is to say, today (2 years ago when the article was written) it costs nowhere remotely close to $100. But eventually, if all their aspirations are met, it might.