23andMe’s Meltdown Was Inevitable—and Deserved

The desoxyribonucleic acid testing company 23andMe is circling the drain , and it ’s about damn time .

Earlierthis week , 23andMe officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just as its CEO Anne Wojcicki stepped down from the position — the latest abasement for a formerly prosper society once valued at $ 6 billion . Though it ’s still possible that some version will outlive this fiscal turmoil , its days as a inherited examination juggernaut appear to be firmly over . Frankly , give the many mistakes and misinform promises 23andMe and like companies have made throughout the years , it ’s a well - deserve fate .

Shattered trust

Much attention has rightly been paid to the company ’s unfathomable handling of its customers ’ data . begin in April 2023 , hacker gain access to the personal information of nearly 7 million customers , more than one-half of the company ’s customers ( the initial breach affected 14,000 accounts , which the hackers then used to get at information from many others ) . Though the hacker were n’t flat privy to people ’s deoxyribonucleic acid record , they were able-bodied to obtain epithet , birth year , and kin tree information .

It contract five months for the society toeven noticethe hack , and two months before itpublicly admittedto the total scale of the breach . Along the way , the ship’s company attempt to lie the incrimination at its customers ’ feet , scolding them for recycling password . To be clear , you should never reuse passwords — but the troupe we trust with our data also have a responsibility to keep it secure .

The hack writer sternly shook the public ’s authority in 23andMe and incurred a overweight price . Last December , for case , the companyagreedto pay $ 30 million to settle a class action lawsuit charge against it for the falling out . The company ’s security failings are one affair , but the origination of consumer genetic science testing in general have always rested on shaky background .

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Overstated offerings

In 2010 , four long time after 23andMe first launched , the U.S. Government Accountability Office ( GAO ) published aninvestigative reportaccusing the consumer desoxyribonucleic acid testing industry of regularly misleading the public . harmonise to the report , company often marketed these trial run by falsely claim they could accurately predict the chances of someone developing any number of aesculapian conditions . In 2013 , the Food and Drug Administrationbanned23andMe for sell its own reading of these personal genetics trial ( tests focusing purely on ancestry were still allowed ) .

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To its credit , 23andMe did retool its business poser in response to the FDA . It eventually launch FDA - approved tests to reveal if someone convey genes linked to specific hereditary consideration ( genes that could be passed on to their children ) , in improver toteststhat provided insights into the risk of developing conditions like Alzheimer ’s , type 2 diabetes , and certain cancers . Egregiousfalse advertisingin the DNA testing industriousness may have declined somewhat since the GAO paper , but some companies are still being caught for deceiving their customers .

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Put simply , though : most the great unwashed do n’t really benefit from these direct - to - consumer DNA tests , largely because our transmissible factors are usuallyonly one piece of the very freehanded puzzlethat is our health . Our gene can influence our peril of acquiring type 2 diabetes , for case , but factor like want of exercise or corpulency have a much greater impact . And the actual life-style advice given to people at higher genetic danger for diabetes should be the same as what ’s given to everyone at high risk : move more and consume a healthy diet .

Insufficient science

scientist are continuing to find new link between our genetic science and wellness , and now and then discoveringnew genetical disorders . But we ’re not currently at , and will likely never pass , a point where a printout of someone ’s desoxyribonucleic acid can provide them with a accurate route map to their health . And that ’s assuming we ’re gettingaccurate resultsin the first place . A 2018 studyfoundthat up to 40 % of genic variants marked as potentially worrying in a somebody ’s raw genetic data were actually false positives , for instance .

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speak of inaccuracies , ancestry testing hasits problems , too . The transmitted markers commonly used to measure both a somebody ’s wellness and heritage by these society are capable to some interpretation , and it ’s potential that two caller , given your DNA , will down out two markedly dissimilar assessments of your ancestry ( even Twin Falls can getdifferent resultsfrom the same company ) .

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I have n’t even get into therecent phenomenonof constabulary enforcement agencies starting to employ data point from others ’ DNA examination results to chase down related crime suspect . While many people are supportive of this use , plenty are n’t . A 2020 Pew surveyfoundsupport split down the center .

At the end of the twenty-four hours , it seems that 23andMe ’s fall was n’t just triggered by the 2023 hack , but by its own irrelevance . As Gizmodo has already take down , the company has repeatedly tried to pivot to new origin of sustainable revenue , from selling $ 1,000 - a - year subscriptions marketed as health care tomore recently making plansto further mine its client ’ deoxyribonucleic acid data for scientific research .

There ’s only so much you could learn from a consumer deoxyribonucleic acid mental test , and it appears there ’s also only so much money you could make from selling them to the public . While I wo n’t resent people for being curious about their genetics , my opinion when ask is the same as it ’s been for years : do n’t take any desoxyribonucleic acid tests that you and your doctor have n’t agreed is right for you . And if you ’re a 23andMe client , it might be overbold todelete your explanation — just be aware that you ca n’t entirely scrub your data with them .

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