FDA Bans 23andme Personal Genetic Tests
By BBC,
BBC News [Quotes CGS's Marcy Darnovsky]
| 11. 26. 2013
Google-backed 23andme has been ordered to "immediately discontinue" selling its saliva-collection tests after failing to provide information to back its marketing claims.
The tests aims to show how personal genetic codes may affect future health.
The company said it would address concerns.
The start-up has been operating since 2006 and was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
For $99 (£61), users receive a kit allowing them to take sample of saliva. This is sent to the company and in return users receive a readout of their genetic code.
The website promises reports on 254 health conditions and traits as well as offering to help people trace their genealogy.
Under FDA rules, the company must provide proof about how accurate its detection methods are as well as supplying the error rates from its personal genome service (PGS).
In a public letter the FDA said that 23andme had not supplied this information, despite increasing its marketing campaign and the scope of its tests.
"FDA is concerned about the public health consequences of inaccurate results from the PGS...
Related Articles
By Dana Mattioli, The Wall Street Journal | 04.15.2025
Image "Elon Musk" by Debbie Rowe on Wikimedia Commons
licensed under CC by S.A. 3.0
Ashley St. Clair wanted to prove that Elon Musk was the father of her newborn baby.
But to ask the billionaire to take a paternity...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 04.24.2025
A Review of Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them by Diane M. Tober
A recent journalistic investigation of the global egg trade at Bloomberg put the industry’s unregulated practices and their exploitative implications back in the spotlight. Diane Tober’s book Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them, published in October of last year, delves even more deeply into the industry with a thorough examination of egg...
By Staff, DREDF | 04.17.2025
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr." by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by SA 3.0
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent statements on autism are hateful, uninformed, and extraordinarily harmful to...
By Mary Annette Pember, ICT News [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 04.18.2025
The sight of a room full of human cadavers can be off-putting for some, but not for Haley Omeasoo.
In fact, Omeasoo’s comfort level and lack of squeamishness convinced her to pursue studies in forensics and how DNA can be...