One rather less encouraging piece of news from California is that the state’s health regulators have sent notices to 13 genetic testing services asking them to halt sales until they have proved that they comply with the necessary requirements. In particular California state law requires that genetic screening can only be done at the request of a doctor, yet these companies appear to advertise on the Internet to ordinary people, offering screening services (see here, for example). Goodness only knows what people buying these services will make of the results.
The one company I checked out appears to be concentrating on telling the individual what health risks he or she might face because of their genetic make-up. But presumably genetic screening of potential mates, and of actual embryos, won’t be far behind. It is an interesting world we are moving into.
I’m surprised they don’t just have MDs on staff to make the “request” on behalf of any customer who wants it.
Right, but if they don’t that suggests to me that their business model is going to be one of just pumping out test results with little back-up care, which I suspect is why the Californian authorities are worried about them.
You can get a lot more in the way of medical testing services in the US than you can in the UK, and I think that’s generally a good thing, but in this particular case I worry about the ability of anyone (me included) to make sense of the test results and act appropriately on them without expert advice.