Gene test mix-up brings scrutiny to industry
By Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera,
San Francisco Chronicle
| 06. 11. 2010
[Quotes CGS's Jesse Reynolds]
Last week, retired marketing specialist Nora Probasco called her brother with a half-serious, half-joking question: Was she adopted?
The issue came up after the 59-year-old genealogy hobbyist from Louisville, Ky., received the results of a test she took through 23andMe, a Google-backed firm that allows people to learn more about their ancestry and some medical conditions through DNA analysis.
"I was shocked," she said. "What it came down to, the way I know to read them, is that my mom is not my mom."
To her relief, it turned out to be a mistake. Last Friday, the Mountain View firm acknowledged in a post on its Web site that it mixed up the samples of 96 clients and sent them the wrong ones. The company corrected the mistake relatively quickly, but observers see the potential for similar errors that could lead individuals to make ill-informed decisions regarding their health.
The company, which was founded in 2006, said in an e-mail that the mistake occurred when a tray with 96 samples was misplaced. The company added that new procedures have been...
Related Articles
President Trump scored a bunch of generally favorable mainstream headlines recently by announcing that he was ordering expanded access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). He had announced in October that he was “the father of IVF” although he also said he had only just learned what it was from Senator Katie Britt (R-AL), who explained it to him over the phone. “And within about two minutes, I understood it.”
The executive order, as reporter Susan Rinkunas wryly noted at...
This month’s gene therapy news includes celebrations of promising new developments running beside gloomy takes on the future of the industry.
Early in February, a STAT headline quipped “The CRISPR companies are not OK”:
Interviews with over 75 investors, academics, executives, analysts, and employees reveal a swaggering industry suddenly and deeply humbled. Put simply, they’ve realized — billions of dollars and more than a few ill-conceived companies later — that there are surprisingly few places today where you...
By Oriol Güell, El País | 02.17.2025
A “small strand of blood in the poop.” This was the first sign, initially viewed as unimportant, that put Jesús Lunar and Cristina López on the trail that something was happening with their son’s health. Javier had been born on...
By Bertha Coombs, CNBC | 02.18.2025
Starting in his early teens, Deshawn “DJ” Chow wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to live a normal life. Crushing pain episodes brought on by his sickle cell disease were getting progressively worse.
“It’s just been hard skipping school...
