But not everyone is getting the same vaccine.

When you sign up for vaccination, you are sent a vial with instructions to send a sample of your saliva to the nearest laboratory. Just a few hours later you receive a message telling you which vaccine you should get.

Your neighbour also signed up for vaccination. But their vaccine is different from yours.

Both of you are now vaccinated and protected, although each of you received your vaccines depending on "who you are".

Your genetics, age, gender, and myriad of other factors are captured in a "model" that predicts and determines the best option to protect you from the virus.

It all sounds a bit like science fiction. But since the decoding of the human genome in 2003, we have entered the age of precision prevention.

New Zealand has a long-standing newborn screening programme.

This includes genome sequencing machines available nationwide and a genetic health service.

Programmes such as these open up the possibilities of public health genomics and precision public health for everyone.

The further expansion of these programmes, as well as the expansion of the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable a shift to more personalised preventive care, will change how public health care is delivered.

At the same time, these developments raise wider concerns over individual choice versus the greater good, personal privacy, and who is responsible for the protection of New Zealanders and their health information.

What is precision prevention?

Think of precision prevention (also known as personalised prevention) as public health action tailored to the individual rather than broader groups of society.

This targeted healthcare is achieved by balancing a range of variables (including your genes, life history and environment) with your risks (including everything that changes within you as you grow older).

While advances in genomics are making precision prevention possible, machine learning algorithms fuelled by our personal data have made it closer to a reality.

We generate data about ourselves every day - via social media, smartwatches and other wearable devices - helping to train algorithms to match medical prevention measures with individuals.

Combine all of these with AI-driven predictive modelling, and you have a system that can predict the current and future state of your health with an eerie level of accuracy, and help you take steps to prevent disease.

Safety and delay

The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor recently published a report mapping out the landscape of artificial intelligence and machine learning in New Zealand over the next five years.

While the report authors didn't specifically reference "precision prevention", they did include examples of this approach, such as computer vision augmented mammography.

But as the report suggests, adoption tends to fall behind the pace of innovation in AI.

Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand has also not approved emerging large language models and generative artificial intelligence tools as safe and effective for use in healthcare.

This means generative AI-driven precision prevention practices, such as conversational AI for public health messaging, may have to wait before they can be deemed safe to use.

Move forward with caution

There is much to be excited about the prospects of the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in ushering in a new age of precision prevention and preventive health. But at the same time, we must temper this with caution.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning may increase access and utilisation of healthcare by lowering barriers to medical knowledge and reducing human bias.

But government and medical agencies need to reduce barriers related to digital literacy and access to online platforms.

For those with limited access to online resources or who have limited digital literacy, the already existent inequity of access to care and health could worsen.

Artificial intelligence also has a significant environmental impact. One study found several common large AI models can emit over 270,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide during their life cycle.

Finally, technology is a shifting landscape. Proponents of precision healthcare must be careful with children and marginalised communities and their access to resources.

Maintaining privacy and choice is essential - everyone should be in a position to control what they share with the AI agents.

In the end, each of us is different, and we all have our different needs for our health and for our lives. Moving more people to preventive care through precision healthcare will reduce the financial burden on the health system.

But as the report from the prime minister's chief science officer emphasises, machine learning algorithms are a nascent field.

We need more public education and awareness before the technology becomes part of our everyday lives.

• First published in The Conversation
• Finlay Macdonald is a New Zealand journalist, editor, publisher and broadcaster.

These were among the warnings sounded before the United Kingdom's House of Commons passed a new law permitting their creation.

The new regulations enable genetic processes to fight the transmission of mitochondrial diseases, such as muscular dystrophy.

The UK is the first country in the world to legalise the new techniques.

Two procedures were covered by the regulations.

The maternal spindle transfer technique involves the extraction of the genetic material from a mother's egg, which is then inserted into a donor egg in which the maternal spindle has been removed and discarded.

The reconstituted egg is then fertilised by the father's sperm before implantation in the mother.

The procedure is known as "three-parent IVF".

The second technique, pronuclear transfer, involves up to four parents.

Dr Trevor Stammers, programme director in Bioethics and Medical Law at St Mary's University, said babies produced by such methods will have to be monitored all their lives, as will their children.

Dr Paul Knoepfler, associate professor at the University of California, Davis, also warned that babies could be born with defects.

"Aberrations could lead to developmental defects in babies or also manifest in later life as increased rates of ageing of cancer," he said.

Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College, said the new procedures disrupted the "evolutionary compatibility" between the nucleus and the mitochondria of the cell.

"It is going to lead to children with conditions which, in some cases, will probably be worse than the conditions they are trying to avoid," he said.

A technique similar to that approved in Britain has been banned in China.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has decided such techniques are not safe enough to be approved.

The UK's House of Lords will consider the legislation on February 23.

If it passes, the first human trials could take place from October and the first babies born by late 2016.

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales expressed concerns over the ethics of the new procedures.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Monash University

A study found that, while gay men shared similar genetic make-up, it only accounted for 40 per cent of the chance of a man being homosexual.

But scientists say it could still be possible to develop a test to find out if a baby was more likely to be gay.

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, Dr Michael Bailey, of Northwestern University in the United States, has been studying 400 sets of twins to determine if some men are genetically predisposed to being gay.

The study found that gay men shared genetic signatures on part of the X-chromosome - Xq28.

Dr Bailey told The Telegraph: "Sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice."

"Our findings suggest there may be genes at play - we found evidence for two sets that affect whether a man is gay or straight.

"But it is not completely determinative; there are certainly other environmental factors involved.

"Although this could one day lead to a pre-natal test for male sexual orientation, it would not be very accurate, as there are other factors that can influence the outcome."

Dr Alan Sanders, associate Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University, who led the study said that it was it was an "oversimplification" to suggest there was a "gay gene".

"We don't think genetics is the whole story. It's not. We have a gene that contributes to homosexuality but you could say it is linked to heterosexuality. It is the variation."

No similar genes have been discovered which influence female homosexuality.

Dr Bailey said environmental factors were likely to have the biggest impact on homosexuality.

Meanwhile, more than 350 people attended a US conference on supporting people with same-sex attraction who want to live according to Catholic teaching, as well as those close to them.

The Courage/EnCourage Conference 2014 in Philadelphia last month had as its theme "Move beyond the confines of the homosexual label to a more complete identity in Christ".

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, who celebrated the opening liturgy, spoke of the challenge of doing what is right even when we know it is difficult to do it.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Catholic Philly
• Image: MD Salaries

Confronted with such a question, the vast majority of people would know that A was the correct answer.

Indeed, most people would know that water in the lungs is proof of death by drowning but that lack of it is proof of death prior to a body being immersed in water.

Now consider the following anecdote, seared on my memory for reasons that will quickly become apparent:

It was a conference at the London School of Economics in the early years of the new century on evolutionary psychology, chaired by the leading sociologist, Prof Lord Giddens, to which I had been invited along with the great and the good of the Darwinian and sociological worlds.

In the course of an extempore comment, I pointed out that, although people indisputably have free will, the free will we have is limited to choosing from menus of options ultimately drawn up by our genes.

I gave the example of suicide, making the obvious point that, although people can kill themselves by refusing food or drink, no one has ever committed suicide by holding their breath!

But at this point a well-known and very eminent professor of biology and neurobiology leapt to his feet and excitedly asked the audience "Whether Dr Badcock has ever heard of suicide by drowning?" A thunder of raucous laughter was immediately followed by hearty applause—and stunned silence on my part. The assembled intellectual elite of Darwinism and social science appeared to believe that people drown by holding their breath, and that my comment was completely laughable. In other words, they had ticked B above! But how could this be possible? How could an elite audience of intellectuals with an average IQ well above 100, chaired by a member of the House of Lords and led by an influential professor, be so confused in its thinking? Continue reading

Source

• Psychology Today
• Image: The Sydney Morning Herald

In 1892, he went gum digging in Northland, then tried his hand at gold mining on the West Coast. He settled in Hokitika, where he married and raised a family. His youngest daughter, Gertrude, was my grandmother.

Maori genealogical narratives go back many more generations than this, suggesting, along with radiocarbon dating of the earliest burial sites, that the first Polynesians arrived here some 800 years ago.

But how many were there? And where did they come from?

The pattern of mutations in the DNA of modern humans reveals that if you go back far enough, we all came from Africa - all people alive today have a common ancestor who lived in Africa 160,000 years ago.

About 60,000 years ago, our human ancestors began to migrate out of Africa. Recent discoveries suggest that as they travelled, they occasionally interbred with other hominids, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Work by population geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the National Geographic's Genographic Project, and Lisa Matisoo-Smith, professor of biological anthropology at University of Otago and the Genographic Project's Oceania investigator, is filling in the gaps between family genealogies and the broad narratives about our species' journey from Africa. Continue reading.

More on the Genographic Project in NZ can be found at genographic.com

Source: The Listener

Image: National Geographic