VA's Million Veteran Program to aid federal Precision Medicine Initiative

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The Million Veteran Program in the Department of Veterans Affairs is the VA's initiative to gather genomic information on veterans to better learn how genes affect health. MVP is joining forces with the federal government's Precision Medicine Initiative and National Cancer Moonshot Initiative to bolster these programs' data banks and advance precision medicine efforts.

The VA expects to soon enroll its 500,000th volunteer in MVP. The department plans to reach its enrollment goal of 1 million veterans in a few years, according to Bloomberg Government post authored by David Shulkin, MD, undersecretary for health in the VA.

"Veterans view enrollment in MVP as an opportunity to continue their service and help other veterans. And now, MVP is playing an important role in the federal government's Precision Medicine Initiative and Moonshot Initiative, which will give these veterans an opportunity to help not only their fellow veterans, but all Americans," Dr. Shulkin writes.

Additionally, the VA seeks to combine its efforts with the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health to develop interagency agreements to share data.

"VA research has long been distinguished by the fact that our patients are eager to help their fellow veterans by volunteering for studies," writes Dr. Shulkin. "Their altruism, combined with the lifelong care we provide and a standard electronic health record system, make VA an ideal partner in the precision medicine movement. We're committed to making precision medicine a reality for veterans and all Americans."

More articles on genomics:

Intermountain, Stanford establish research program focused on precision health: 6 things to know
Mount Sinai, Sage Bionetworks analyze nearly 600k genomes
9 questions about precision medicine, answered

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