home .Featured, Human Microbiome, Urban Microbiomes Where does privacy end and epidemiology begin? How much should we use surveys of what is in sewers and how far up the line should they go?

Where does privacy end and epidemiology begin? How much should we use surveys of what is in sewers and how far up the line should they go?

Question of the day. Where do we draw the line in terms of privacy when sampling sewer systems?  I have had some major concerns about microbiome studies using sewer system samples in the past.  And of course people are trying to use sewer system studies to look at all sorts of other epidemiology related data.  Here is a discussion of opioid studies but some of the questions and concerns also apply to microbiome studies.

Thoughts?  I think the science here is very interesting but worry a lot about how this is starting to get a bit too big brothery.

Source: How scientists want to use sewers to track the spread of opioids

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