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23andMe's Fall

wsj.com

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Re: 23andMe's Fall

#181

Post by rockinghigh »

carbocation wrote: post #136
mminer237 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is illegal, at least in the US.

Illegal for health insurance companies. But not so for life insurance, or disability insurance or long-term care.

It's illegal in some US states like California. The California Genetic Information Privacy Act prohibits these companies from disclosing a consumer’s genetic data to any entity that is responsible for administering or making decisions regarding health insurance, life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability insurance.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#182

Post by astura »

carbocation wrote: post #136
mminer237 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is illegal, at least in the US.

Illegal for health insurance companies. But not so for life insurance, or disability insurance or long-term care.

If they wanted to use that information for underwriting they'd just make getting a genetic test a prereq before underwriting the policy.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#183

Post by nradov »

zamadatix wrote: post #157
astrange wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling it is not a problem for the same reason they can't make a profit from it. It's not worth much. (They do have valuable data, but it's the survey answers and friend and family connections. Nobody really cares you have a G at SNP 12213244243.)

Well, nobody is really interested in the test to find out they have G at SNP 12213244243 either. They do it specifically to get the ancestry, health, and potential physical bias type information you mention - that's the only real data anyone is talking about when referencing the test. Plenty of companies would love to have that kind of data to target users with. The real killer would probably be around how useless he…

The health data is pretty underwhelming for most people, outside of a few highly studied genes like BRCA variants. I did a genetic test and it reported that according to one study I had something like a 3% risk of a shoulder injury which is higher than the population average of 2%. So what am I supposed to do with that information, wear shoulder pads or something?

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#184

Post by paulddraper »

idatum wrote: post #176
SOVIETIC-BOSS88 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a terrifying cyberpunk novel that I would definitely read. Although I hope the future is not that bleak.

Reminder of the film Gattaca which explored some of the risks of leaking your DNA in a future dystopia.

Such a good movie. (If a bit slow paced.)

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#185

Post by suslik »

BasilPH wrote: post #115
Shank wrote: post #33

> To create a recurring revenue stream from the tests, Wojcicki has pivoted to subscriptions. As media companies launched streaming “+” channels, Wojcicki rolled out 23andMe+, offering personalized health reports, lifestyle advice and unspecified “new reports and features as discoveries are made” for an initial $229, with annual renewals of $69. I was a heavy believer of 23andMe until this point. I answered all of th…

> As an added security measure, we have temporarily disabled the ability to download your raw genetic data. We hope to re-enable this ability soon, and we appreciate your patience. Apparently 23andMe doesn't let you download the data anymore, I just tried. I wanted to give Promethease a go, seems interesting.

I couldn't find it either. Fortunately, I downloaded the genotypes in July.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#187

Post by coolThingsFirst »

bedhead wrote: post #83

The last 5-8 years in tech were like the steroid era in baseball. We thought all these people were geniuses but virtually none of them can make their business models work without free money and investors looking the other way on profitability. 23 and Me being worth billions is like Brady Anderson hitting 50 home runs.

Honestly it’s good from that aspect. CRUD apps bring worth billions just does the make sense.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#188

Post by mfld »

shellfishgene wrote: post #89
Shank wrote: post #33

> To create a recurring revenue stream from the tests, Wojcicki has pivoted to subscriptions. As media companies launched streaming “+” channels, Wojcicki rolled out 23andMe+, offering personalized health reports, lifestyle advice and unspecified “new reports and features as discoveries are made” for an initial $229, with annual renewals of $69. I was a heavy believer of 23andMe until this point. I answered all of th…

Is there a Promethease equivalent for ancestry data?

yTree would qualify: Small one-time fee, no subscription needed, simple but good results.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#189

Post by Dylan16807 »

astrange wrote: post #151
belval wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who paid for 23andme+, it was pretty much a scam anyway, I got maybe 4-5 more reports over the year, all of which were for random popular ailments like "Anxiety" where the link between your genes and the disease(?) are pretty dubious in the literature and the takeaway was "you are 5% more likely to experience anxiety".

> where the link between your genes and the disease(?) are pretty dubious in the literature This is inescapable; genetics usually can't show causation, for instance because you can't do an experiment where you change someone's genes. Geneticists seem to deal with this by using statistics like GWAS that are obviously just correlation, adding a sentence that correlation doesn't show causation, and then just proceeding…

Only showing correlation is one thing, but if the correlations themselves are barely noticable then that's a big problem for making a useful report.

Though if you find whatever gene is most correlated with something, what are the options for it not to be causation? If the chance of causation is high enough, it makes sense to proceed as if the risk is real.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#190

Post by dundarious »

Why do people believe genetic testing offers a pathway to a wide array of beneficial (non-snake oil) tailored drugs and treatments? What is the scientific basis for this belief, other than "seems plausible" reasoning?
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