Why 23andme

Personal Finance. Credit Cards. About Us. Who Is the Motley Fool? Fool Podcasts. New Ventures. Search Search:. Nov 2, at PM. Key Points 23andMe stock was up The company announced it was acquiring the telehealth platform Lemonaid Health.

Discounted offers are only available to new members. Stock Advisor will renew at the then current list price. Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close. Investing Best Accounts. Stock Market Basics. Stock Market. Industries to Invest In. Getting Started. Spit in a vial, send it in, and the company will look at thousands of regions in your DNA that are known to vary from human to human—and which are responsible for some of our traits.

For example a site in your genome named rs can come in three varieties. If you happen to have what is known as the GG variant, there is a good probability that you are unable to smell asparagus in your urine; those blessed with the GA or AG varieties are much more likely to be repulsed by their own pee after having a few spears at Spargelfest. At first, 23andMe seemed to angle its kit as a fun way to learn a little genetics using yourself as a test subject. Certain regions signal an increased risk of breast cancer, the impending onset of metabolic diseases, and sensitivity to medications.

And any kit intended to cure, mitigate, treat, prevent, or diagnose a disease is, according to federal law, a "medical device" that needs to be deemed safe and effective by the FDA. Since mid, 23andMe has been negotiating with the agency, and in July , the company finally began the process of getting clearance from the FDA to sell the kit that it had already been selling for five years.

It apparently blew through its FDA deadlines, effectively annulling the clearance process, and abruptly cut off contact with the agency in May. This left the agency with little alternative but to take action.

It is a mechanism meant to be a front end for a massive information-gathering operation against an unwitting public. Sound paranoid? Consider the case of Google. When it first launched, Google billed itself as a faithful servant of the consumer, a company devoted only to building the best tool to help us satisfy our cravings for information on the web. But my grandmother, whose parents moved from Sicily to Brooklyn, where she was born and grew up speaking Italian, refused to accept the findings.

Fast forward to this summer, when I got an email about new DNA relations on 23andMe and revisited my updated genetic results, only to find out that I am, in fact, about a quarter Italian and generally southern European.

But it was too late to tell my grandma. As my Vox colleague Brian Resnick has explained , some small amount of error is unavoidable within the technical portion of analyzing your DNA. Making the results of these tests even more unreliable is the fact that their whole ancestry component is based on self-reported surveys from people who say they belong to one ancestry or another — an inherently flawed practice.

And as more people submit their DNA to genetic testing companies, and more law enforcement and government agencies figure out ways to use this deeply personal genetic information, it could be used against us. Of course, few people read privacy policies in the first place under 10 percent always do so, according to a new Pew Research study.

Hazel says some of the biggest genetics testing companies, like 23andMe and Ancestry, have signed on to a list of best practices , a policy framework created by the Future of Privacy Forum , which includes both consumer and industry advocacy groups. The practices include agreements to be transparent around data collection, to take strong security measures, and to use valid legal processes when working with law enforcement.

Failing to live up to these tenets is a PR flub, rather than a legal burden. And we need your help. Fill out this form to contribute to our reporting. He also warned that while large companies might be motivated by public opinion, consumer feedback, and media scrutiny, smaller companies tend to be overlooked and left to do what they want, under the radar. Law enforcement has long used DNA testing in police investigations, but these consumer tests give authorities an exponentially bigger potential pool — more than 26 million people have taken at-home ancestry tests.

In one recent high-profile case, authorities were able to track down the Golden State serial killer after four decades by using DNA from his third cousin and fourth cousins , who had voluntarily uploaded their DNA test results to GEDMatch, a public site where people go to find long-lost relatives — and a resource that police rely on to help investigate crimes.