Say hello to your addiction risk score — courtesy of the tech industry

Marzyeh Ghassemi, a 2023-2024 MIT Jameel Clinic principal investigator, is quoted by the New York Times on the topic of genetic tests designed to predict the risk of opioid addiction. According to the article, several studies have found that some of these tests could mislabel individuals who are descended from two or more racial groups as being at high risk of addiction. Since most African Americans have such admixed ancestry, this could bias the test into identifying them as high risk.

“This means that the model can use the genetic markers of African American status to predict opioid use disorder, instead of using any biologically plausible genetic markers,” said Marzyeh.