U.K. health secretary calls for NHS to roll out routine genetic testing

U.K. health secretary Matthew Hancock is calling on the NHS to expand the genomic services it covers to include predictive risk testing to assess a person’s probability of developing diseases such as cancer. “I see it as a game-changer for cancer screening in the NHS, and I’m determined that we harness this technology to save lives,” he said yesterday during a speech at The Royal Society in London. Hancock shared that he took a genetic test and learned that he had a 50 percent higher than average risk of getting prostate cancer, and that he was planning to get further testing. Hancock was quickly criticized for his comments — some scientists said he was misinterpreting the results of his genetic testing, while others raised concern his plans would ultimately waste NHS resources.