Several commenters in this discussion have taken as read that the couple are third cousins. Reading the whole article, one finds buried at the bottom the fact that this turned out to be unproven, because the genetic tests are based upon general assumptions that are not true for their segment of the population.
23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
71–80 of 91 posts
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Allow me to offer a different perspective: I've used 23andme and it was one of the best decisions ever. Not so much for the Ancestry part, which was also interesting and explained my above-average cold tolerance, but for the health stuff. Granted, being from Europe they don't directly offer health services, but you can get the raw data and upload it to various sites for interpretation -- ranging from really accessibl…
Since you are from Europe, shouldn't you be able to use GDPR on them?
[deleted]
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With this company you end up $100 (or whatever) short and you surrender your data for it to be sold to ... .... insurance companies and whatnot. False ! Source : https://www.23andme.com/about/privacy/ We will not provide any person’s data (genetic or non-genetic) to an insurance company or employer.
Some great things about companies that you can always count on: - They never change their terms of service - The demand for constant growth never causes them to reconsider ethically dubious revenue streams - They never get acquired
Also, does anything prevent them from selling your data to a middleman who then sells it to an insurance company?
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#74The sociological effects of DNA matching sites are going to be interesting to watch. I personally found out a year or so ago that my dad wasn't my biological father. At the age of 45, that's an, um, interesting secret to suddenly discover. Now, imagine what happens in a society with strict laws/rules/mores about this sort of thing? Well, we won't have to imagine for long. I'm quite sure my experience is a lot more co…
> I'm quite sure my experience is a lot more common than most people realize, and I think much of the world isn't ready for it. Nonpaternity is quite rare overall, and still unusual even when the putative father has so little paternity confidence that he demands a paternity test. https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/12/04/how-paternity-test...
I wonder if there how those low numbers have changed over time. I ask from personal history.
My grandfather was away in WWII when one of my aunts was conceived. As my grandmother put it, she was lonely.
All of the adults at that time knew, but kept it a secret. None of the kids knew until that aunt was about 45 and diagnosed with a cancer ... with a genetic susceptibility passed down though the male line. My grandparents figured it was time to reveal that secret.
I therefore conjecture that the numbers in the US were higher during WWII.
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Doesn't mean it won't be misused. To add to this, though genetic information may be protected against defining a pre-existing medical condition for insurance purposes today , there's zero guarantee that that law protecting you will still exist in the future , or extend to your descendants (which can be assumed to carry roughly half of your genetic material). Once you've given this data away without any guarantee tha…
If insurance companies wanted genetic testing data they wouldn't bother trying to do a messy data join with a third-party database, they'd just make it a requirement to provide a swab/saliva sample for testing when you signed up.
Boiled frog fallacy. They won't be able to get away with it now, but as time goes on they'll start adding it as a voluntary option for a small discount, eventually ceasing to offer service otherwise.
Auto insurance is already well into the process of doing the same thing with regard to diagnostics data being transmitted back home from Snapshot devices/driver's aids.
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#76I work in genomics. My lab, many of my friends and acquaintances work in genomics or had to dabble with it for at least one of their projects. You would think we would all be fascinated by this stuff, getting to know your own DNA and everything. Yet I don't know a single person who would even consider using 23andMe's service. To me this is all an elaborate scam. Why on earth would you pay them to give them your data…
> With this company you end up $100 (or whatever) short and you surrender your data for it to be sold to ... .... insurance companies and whatnot. False ! Source : https://www.23andme.com/about/privacy/ We will not provide any person’s data (genetic or non-genetic) to an insurance company or employer.
Then why do they hold onto it instead of destroying any record after transmission?
Because it's an asset, and they are there to make money. Not because they are doing it out of the goodness of their own heart.
You can't take back information.
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#77The author alluded to the link that her second child is autistic and the relatedness with her spouse.
But what's more glaring is that her second conception occurred when she was 37 and her husband 39. There are studies that showed the increased incidence of child autism conceived from older fathers.
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I travel a fair bit and stay at the hotels here and there. I keep wondering, how long before hotels start sampling your personal belongings (toothbrush, comb etc) for gen data. Maybe that already happening? From there, how long before full lists of these data {genetic sample; full name and other credentials} are on sale on some special market? Call me paranoid... is that sort of activity even regulated? Isn't this li…
Well, if we're being paranoid they probably don't need to touch your personal belongings. They just have to have a look at the bed sheets after you've slept on them. ...or to get your DNA they can work it out from the "deposited" DNA of your close relatives. There will be no hiding! :P
Sure! What I specifically meant (sorry, was unclear) is, how long before such activity becomes lucrative enough for hotels to routinely perform? ("hotels" == entities in a completely unrelated lines of business) I.e., there is stable market for these data and the procedure isn't very costly in recurring expenses (no costly extraction from "noisy" support).
Would that be legal by today's laws?
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#79The sociological effects of DNA matching sites are going to be interesting to watch. I personally found out a year or so ago that my dad wasn't my biological father. At the age of 45, that's an, um, interesting secret to suddenly discover. Now, imagine what happens in a society with strict laws/rules/mores about this sort of thing? Well, we won't have to imagine for long. I'm quite sure my experience is a lot more co…
And 23andMe may know who you real father is from the lineage network they can build out of their database.
Re: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
#80I work in genomics. My lab, many of my friends and acquaintances work in genomics or had to dabble with it for at least one of their projects. You would think we would all be fascinated by this stuff, getting to know your own DNA and everything. Yet I don't know a single person who would even consider using 23andMe's service. To me this is all an elaborate scam. Why on earth would you pay them to give them your data…
Allow me to offer a different perspective: I've used 23andme and it was one of the best decisions ever. Not so much for the Ancestry part, which was also interesting and explained my above-average cold tolerance, but for the health stuff. Granted, being from Europe they don't directly offer health services, but you can get the raw data and upload it to various sites for interpretation -- ranging from really accessibl…
> explained my above average cold tolerance ... I knew what to look for...
Sorry but this makes it sound like horoscope reading.
If you can't rely on it to make predictions and only use it to confirm preexisting ideas about yourself how is it better than pseudoscience?