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23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

23andme.com

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Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#51

Post by bengotow »

khomenko wrote: post #45
bengotow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'll get your results - at least not soon. The FDA said they needed to back up their claims that their assessment methodologies are accurate, and since they failed to respond to those requests they've been prohibited from performing the genetic tests and giving you the insights that you paid for. Don't think it matters when you bought the kit :-(

"Customers who purchased kits before November 22, 2013 will continue to have access to all the reports they’ve always had."

Ahh interesting. At first I'd read that to mean that they weren't taking data down, and existing customers would still be able to access their reports. I figured that only applied to people who had already had a report generated.

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#52

Post by midas007 »

cromwellian wrote: post #34
bengotow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - Here's a company that built a complex software system, loaded it with "if" statements pulled from research papers, and started marketing itself as a predictor of cancer and disease. How did they do their research? What is their threshold for determining if scientific evidence is conclusive enough to merit telling the world they could have a major disease? The FDA wants to know, and so do I.

So now, people will just export their data and third party companies will provide such interpretation and the FDA won't be able to touch them. How soon until github has an open source project to read and interpret 23andme data-dumps?

You can already do that today with downloaded SNPs [1] with Promethease [2].

1. https://www.23andme.com/you/download/

2. http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease (non-pro version)

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#53

Post by midas007 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #6
johnbpetersen wrote: post #2

Well this sucks. I was going to pay for the test this weekend. Anyone have any idea how useful the health data is without the 23andme interpretation? I'm guessing it will be basically useless.

You can get the basically same report running Promethease on 23andMe data dump. There is a website even providing automatic 23andMe data import using 23andMe's API.

Get SNPs via https://www.23andme.com/you/download/ and then process with http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#55

Post by patrickaljord »

timr wrote: post #49
Afforess wrote: post #8

This seems to be the nuclear option. As a (now fortunate) previous purchaser of 23andme, I still have my health information. The information is really valuable, and considering the price ($99!) it is cheaper than a lot of standard medical exams and bloodwork. Obviously not a replacement for any of those things, but it's amazing they can offer DNA health results for so little. The FDA seems to be mostly concerned that…

Here's the deal: you have a report. You have no way of knowing if the information in the report is correct, or not. You may have paid $99 for something that's completely fictional. You just don't know. Is that your "right"? Sure, to some extent. A sucker is born every minute, and if you desperately want to be one of them, the US Government is mostly content to let it happen. We'll even let companies do patently absur…

This is ridiculous, you take extreme examples to prove your point. So let's see, you can still read about all this and worse on the internet, do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No. Because most people are responsible and giving them the freedom to do what they want with their body is more important than anything else. Plus, if someone is ignorant enough to drink arsenic to cure baldness, he'll probably find other ways to hurt himself anyway, FDA or no FDA.

So let's go back to the FDA, is it so effective? Here is the FDA authorizing a drug that killed lots of people http://www.undergroundhealth.com/fda-approved-prescription-d... Also, the time the FDA takes to approve a good drug can take more than 10 years, how many people die because of this unseen consequence? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Food_and_Drug_... Not to forget its reluctance to approve drugs for political reasons (canabis).

So let's see, many people die because of wrongly approved drugs and many die as it takes too long to approve good ones because of the FDA. Now let's imagine a world with no FDA, many people would still die, but at least they'd have the choice to do so on their own decision and not have to wait on a nanny state bureaucracy to tell them what's good or bad for them and many times wrongly so. Why not let people freely decide what they can do to their own body when not doing so still kills a lot of people too? Plus, allowing so would make it much faster to detect when a drug works or not and save way more lives. If you don't even own your own body, what do you own?

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#56

Post by mithras »

cromwellian wrote: post #48

I wonder if another nuclear option is to just move the whole shebang to say, the Cayman Islands, China, or some jurisdiction outside the reach of the FDA and European regulators. Re-incorporate as a non-US entity. Unlike buying medicine from foreign soil that can be interdicted, this is all electronic: shipping spit, and getting back HTML.

So you'd like your genome to be in the hands of a Cayman Island company?

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#57

Post by cromwellian »

mithras wrote: post #56
cromwellian wrote: post #48

I wonder if another nuclear option is to just move the whole shebang to say, the Cayman Islands, China, or some jurisdiction outside the reach of the FDA and European regulators. Re-incorporate as a non-US entity. Unlike buying medicine from foreign soil that can be interdicted, this is all electronic: shipping spit, and getting back HTML.

So you'd like your genome to be in the hands of a Cayman Island company?

And just what are they going to do with it? Target me with a biologically engineered virus? I'm shedding DNA with every breath. Your DNA is currently private thanks to security through obscurity, but if you've ever watched GATTACA, that security will disappear as DNA testing becomes faster, cheaper, accurate, and ubiquitous.

People really need to get over paranoia over this and focus on what matters: laws against discrimination based on genetics.

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#58

Post by timr »

patrickaljord wrote: post #55
timr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the deal: you have a report. You have no way of knowing if the information in the report is correct, or not. You may have paid $99 for something that's completely fictional. You just don't know. Is that your "right"? Sure, to some extent. A sucker is born every minute, and if you desperately want to be one of them, the US Government is mostly content to let it happen. We'll even let companies do patently absur…

This is ridiculous, you take extreme examples to prove your point. So let's see, you can still read about all this and worse on the internet, do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No. Because most people are responsible and giving them the freedom to do what they want with their body is more important than anything else. Plus, if someone is ignorant enough to drink arsenic to cure baldness…

"do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No."

Yeah, we have things called "clinical trials" that pretty much put an end to the bad old days of patent medicine. Guess who enforces that stuff?

The rest of your post is a straw-man. Does the FDA make mistakes? Sure. That doesn't invalidate the need for the agency. Is it your right to do stupid things with your body? See previous comment.

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#59

Post by jadeddrag »

mithras wrote: post #56
cromwellian wrote: post #48

I wonder if another nuclear option is to just move the whole shebang to say, the Cayman Islands, China, or some jurisdiction outside the reach of the FDA and European regulators. Re-incorporate as a non-US entity. Unlike buying medicine from foreign soil that can be interdicted, this is all electronic: shipping spit, and getting back HTML.

So you'd like your genome to be in the hands of a Cayman Island company?

Cayman Island company is no more harmful than in the hands of a (likely CIA/NSA infested) USA company.

Re: 23andme has suspended health-related genetic tests

#60

Post by patrickaljord »

timr wrote: post #58
patrickaljord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous, you take extreme examples to prove your point. So let's see, you can still read about all this and worse on the internet, do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No. Because most people are responsible and giving them the freedom to do what they want with their body is more important than anything else. Plus, if someone is ignorant enough to drink arsenic to cure baldness…

"do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No." Yeah, we have things called "clinical trials" that pretty much put an end to the bad old days of patent medicine. Guess who enforces that stuff? The rest of your post is a straw-man. Does the FDA make mistakes? Sure. That doesn't invalidate the need for the agency. Is it your right to do stupid things with your body? See previous comment.

>> "do we still have people taking arsenic en masse to cure baldness? No."

> Yeah

No, we don't. I said "en masse", that is to say, do we have a massive amount of people taking arsenic everyday to cure boldness? No we don't, and yet anyone can read about it on the web.

> Does the FDA make mistakes? Sure. That doesn't invalidate the need for the agency.

Yes it does, I've just explained that the FDA is responsible for more death than if we had no FDA while taking away people's freedom do cure themselves the way they want.

> Is it your right to do stupid things with your body? See previous comment.

Well, according to you, only if the FDA approves so, the same FDA responsible for countless deaths. No thanks.

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