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23andMe's Fall

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Re: 23andMe's Fall

#281
post #131
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it, due to trust issues related to handing over something like that Same here. Imagine the value of this data in the hands of insurance companies that are willing to misuse it. Will we, as a society, be able to prevent that "value" from being realized?

Federally, health insurers cannot use this data under GINA[0] and SB41[1] in California requires explicit permission be granted by the customer in order for the data to be shared with 3rd parties. In general, however, insurance companies are going to be reluctant to trust this information as it’s not established that it has real medical value outside the handful of markers we’ve clearly identified. [0]: https://medli…

"Federally" doesn't matter to the 95% of us who don't live in America.

Re: 23andMe's Fall

#282

> To create a recurring revenue stream from the tests, Wojcicki has pivoted to subscriptions. Just in case, you know, your DNA changes /s I attended Ann's talk at Google when she was still with Sergey. They had spit kits in case anyone wanted to do it on the spot (I didn't). When President Clinton announced the completion of the human genome project, he looked forward to all the wonderful drugs that would follow ther…

> Just in case, you know, your DNA changes /s It absolutely does. That's how cancer occurs btw. The term is "somatic mutations".

Actually not only cancer. That's also required for adaptive immunity. A human immune system needs roughly 100 million different antibodies to potentially bind every pathogen. And there are only ~30K genes.

What happens is that in B cells the DNA that encodes antibodies' binding regions actually mutate upon B cell maturation. Similar for T cells.

The term is "V(D)J recombination".

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