Genetic testing: Can you handle the truth?

Would you like to know what health risks might be lurking in your DNA? asked Nick Gillespie in Reason.com. The Silicon Valley firm 23andMe has created a personalized genetic testing service for just $99, enabling customers to send a spit sample and get back a detailed picture of their genetic makeup. The report provides customers with an analysis of their ancestry, and tells them whether they have genes predisposing them to any one of 254 hereditary diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and breast cancer. But “in its infinite wisdom” the Food and Drug Administration forced 23andMe last week to stop issuing health analyses. The FDA wants to stringently regulate genetic tests as “medical devices,” warning that the results might “cause us to hack off our own breasts, remove our own testicles,” or some other dire result. When it comes to your own genes, “the FDA doesn’t think you can handle the truth.”

Genetic analyses don’t provide a single, concrete truth, said Kevin Drum in MotherJones.com. Instead, 23andMe was selling a vague, partial picture of its customers’ genomes, and then interpreting that information to give specific medical advice, telling customers they are or are not at high risk for some disease. That’s “acting an awful lot like a doctor.” The company’s product is based on a false premise, said Steve Heilig in the San Francisco Chronicle. While it arrogantly claims to “revolutionize medical care” and “save lives,” the reality is that even the most sophisticated forms of genetic testing—costing $2,000, not $99—often yield ambiguous results. Even professional geneticists “often cannot say with much confidence what such tests imply.” To keep a company from engaging in “medical quackery” is not “paternalism”—it’s called regulation.

Someday, genetic testing will provide truly useful medical information, said geneticist Michael White in PSMag.com. But we’re not there yet. Besides, there’s little you can do if a test says you’re prone to cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s, except exercise, eat healthy foods, etc.—the same advice that applies to everyone. If 23andMe will stop making grand claims, it should be allowed to resume providing overviews of people’s genomes. We just “need to be sure that information isn’t oversold.”

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