The Boston Globe - 19.08.2019

Business

THE BOSTON GLOBE MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/BUSINESS

D

Larry Edelman

After a couple of wild weeks, with
financial markets and the economy
sending mixed signals, the question of
the moment is: Are we on the verge of
a recession?
Looking at the rest of this year, al-
most all forecasters say no. While the
US economy is slowing, the output of
goods and services should continue at
a respectable clip of about 2 percent.
The unemployment rate is expected to
remain near a 50-year low (it was 3.7
percent in July), and a spike in infla-
tion is on no one’s radar.
But the picture is far less certain if
we peer farther down the road.
In a survey released Monday by the
National Association of Business
Economists, 38 percent of respon-
dents said they expected a downturn
in 2020. The good news: That’s a dip
from 42 percent in the group’s survey
in February, before the Federal Re-
serve made clear it would ease interest
rates as needed to extend the econom-
ic expansion.

The caveat: Most respondents to
the survey, which was taken July 14
through Aug. 1, replied before the
trade fight with China escalated. On
Aug. 1, President Trump ordered tar-
iffs on an additional $300 billion of
Chinese goods. Beijing responded by
letting the value of its currency slide
against the US dollar, which was seen
as a retaliatory move.
Since then, US stocks have taken a
bumpy ride lower, and bond investors
are acting like they consider a reces-
sion inevitable.
Still, given all the concern recently
about corporate America growing cau-
tious, it is interesting, even hearten-
ing, to see some business economists
pushing back their recession forecast
to 2021. Thirty-four percent of those
surveyed by the NABE don’t see the
economy contracting until 2021, up
from 25 percent in February.
“Survey respondents indicate that
EDELMAN,PageD2

Recession?

Unlikely,at

leastthisyear

Some business

economists are

pushing back recession

forecasts to 2021.

INSIDE

TARIFFS

Trade war losers may do little

business with ChinaD2

Scott Kirsner

INNOVATIONECONOMY

NEW YORK
—Myfirstride
in a driverless
vehicle was a
surprisingly hu-
man experience.
Standing on a
sidewalk in the
Brooklyn Navy
Yard, where bat-
tleships such as
the USS Arizona were once built, I spotted a
small black vehicle stopped at a signpost. It
looked a bit like a stretch golf cart, but with
the label “Self-Driving” on the back and the
logo of Optimus Ride, a Boston startup,
plastered on the side. There were two peo-
ple in the front seat.
“What time do you leave?” I asked. The
guy in the driver’s seat told me the vehicle

was carrying people to an East River ferry

dock every five to seven minutes. He told

me that I could either get in right away, or

they’d let me know when they were about

to depart.

There was no app to use to interact with

the vehicle — just two people to talk to

through the open window. After a few min-

utes of standing around, I got a wave from

the fellow in the side seat, who was balanc-

ing a laptop on his knees and holding a tab-

let. I hopped in. The computer operator

gave his colleague in the driver’s seat the

go-ahead. He pressed a button on the dash-

board, and we started on the half-mile jour-

ney.

Optimus Ride is one of a few Boston

companies that are developing technologies

for driverless, or autonomous, vehicles.

(The company doesn’t actually build them;

they are made by Polaris, the Canadian

maker of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehi-

cles. Optimus outfits each one with cameras

and sensors.) Optimus has its roots at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and

cofounder and chief scientist Sertac Kara-

man is a professor there. The company has

raised more than $40 million in venture

capital funding.

Unlike competitors such as Uber and

Waymo (a spin-out from Google), which are

focused on the open road, Optimus says it is

primarily developing vehicles that will op-

erate in “geo-fenced” areas, like university

campuses or housing developments — not

on the turnpike during rush hour.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is one such con-

tained environment, a 300-acre complex

that is home to coffee roasters, sculptors,

prototyping shops, and import businesses.

The benefit of such environments is that

INNOVATIONECONOMY,PageD3

‘Self-driving’vehiclesmayneed

humanhelpforawhileyet

In the Brooklyn

Navy Yard, an

Optimus Ride

vehicle

operates in a

predetermined

“geo-fenced”

area.

By Rebecca Robbins

STAT

S

eizing on the surging popularity of at-home DNA

testing kits, top academic medical institutions

are opening clinics that promise to probe much

deeper into your DNA — if you’re willing to pay

hundreds or even thousands of dollars out of

pocket to learn about disease risks that may be

lurking in your genes.

Genomic sequencing programs that cater to apparently

healthy adults have been started in the past few years at the

Mayo Clinic; University of California San Francisco;

and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a

nonprofit research institution in Alabama. Now, two

top Boston hospitals are getting into the potentially lucrative

business.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Friday unveiled a Pre-

ventive Genomics Clinic that will offer a menu of options for

a genetic workup, with price tags from $250 to $2,950, de-

pending on how many genes are analyzed; it’s the first pro-

gram of its kind that will offer the sequencing to children in

addition to adults.

Next month, Massachusetts General Hospital plans to

launch a clinic for adults that would offer elective sequencing

at similar prices as the Brigham’s.

By scouring hundreds or thousands of genes — far more

than most consumer genetics companies — such clinics are,

in a small fraction of patients, diagnosing mild genetic dis-

eases and turning up markers of elevated risk for inherited

conditions both common and rare.

The test results allow clinicians to offer further guidance

to patients, whether that means encouraging them to take

proactive steps such as getting a preventive mastectomy or

counseling them to just be more diligent about a screening

that was recommended anyway.

“There’s just more and more interest from patients and

families not only because of 23andMe and the like, but be-

cause there’s just this understanding that if you can find out

information about your health before you become sick, then

really our opportunity as physicians to do something to help

you is much greater,” said Dr. David Bick, the clinical geneti-

cist who directs the preventive genomics program at Hud-

sonAlpha. Close to 50 adults have each paid $7,000 for se-

quencing and interpretation since HudsonAlpha launched

the offering in 2016, Bick said.

Dr. Robert Green, a medical geneticist leading the new

clinic at the Brigham, is candid about the limitations of ad-

vancedsequencingprograms.“It’sclearlynotbeendemon-

strated to be cost-effective to promote this on a societal ba-

sis,” he said. It’s evident too, he said, that such sequencing

leads to pricey follow-up testing.

“The question that’s hard to answer is whether there are

long-term benefits that justify those health care costs —

whether the sequencing itself, the physician visit, and any

downstream testing that’s stimulated will be justified by the

situations where you can find and prevent disease,” Green

said.

Insurers sometimes cover deep genomic sequencing when

there’s a clear medical reason for it, such as for people with a

GENETICS,PageD3

STAT

‘The

question

that’s hard

to answer is

whether

there are

long-term

benefits that

justify those

health care

costs.’

DR. ROBERT

GREEN, a medical

geneticist leading the

new clinic at

Brigham and

Women’s Hospital

New clinics focus on preventive

genetics — for those who can pay

DOM SMITH/STAT