Disease detecting technology: do you feel safe knowing?

By Matt Bernard

Disease detecting technology: do you feel safe knowing?
Last week Google announced they are working on a device that can detect heart attacks and cancer.

Google X Lab is experimenting with technology that hunts for signs of medical abnormality in the body of users.

Ingested as a pill, nanoparticles are sent through the body and into the bloodstream where they can identify and stick to certain targeted cells such as cancer.

With the results displayed on a device worn on your body, this information could provide valuable data to your physician as well as help early detection of an illness.

However while understandably revolutionary to disease prevention, would you feel comfortable with such personal information known to Google?

Having recently developed a smart contact lens that detects glucose levels in diabetics, Google is seeking to change the existing paradigm between the individual and their physician.

“We’re passionate about switching from reactive to proactive and we’re trying to provide the tools that make that feasible,” told Andrew Conrad, head of life sciences at Google.

Nanotechnology is an area in which there has been much increased interest in recent years, with the American government investing over $20 billion dollars in its research since 2013.

How does the increased interaction between corporations, technology and healthcare make you feel? Does the ability to detect and fight disease earlier than ever outweigh potential privacy breaches, or would you feel safer without these devices at all?

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