DTC genetic testing: Caveat Emptor

I met Cynthia in a van from the airport, headed to the annual meeting of Family Tree DNA (familytreedna.com), where I was to speak about genetic testing. A beautiful blonde who looked decades younger than her 60 years, she ’d led a painful life, with type 1 diabetes since childhood, just like her father, brother, and grandfather. The family, so they thought, was 100% European, mostly Polish.My talk did not go over well. Genetic testing companies and their customers do not like to hear that a geneticist thinks their tests should be regulated, for reasons of both privacy and accuracy.Cynthia, intrigued despite my warnings, sent off a spit sample to 23andme (23andme.com), to learn about her ancestry. She got that, and more – health information, including a “lower than average” risk of developing diabetes. deCODE Genetics (http://www.decodeme.com/) gave her the same answer. Ditto her brother.But her brother ’s Y chromosome held an explanation. About 1200 years ago, a Korean man and at least two Chinese men dropped a bit of DNA into the family. So when Cynthia went back to 23andme and recalculated, entering “Asian” instead of “European,” her diabetes risk shot up to 90%.So it looks like ancestry testing helped get this family on the right track. But another way to look at it is that the health-related tests are simply not precise enough.This past week “direct-to-consumer” genetic testing took a hit, and it’s about time. First the Walgreen’s near-fiasco of...
Source: Women's Bioethics Blog - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: 23 and me DTC genetic testing Source Type: blogs