Paying a private company to test your DNA so you can learn about your health status? This article by Brady Dennis suggests you may want to think twice. Here's an excerpt:
The Food and Drug Administration has ordered the maker of a popular genetic-testing kit to halt sales of its heavily marketed product, saying the mail-order tests haven’t been proven effective and could dangerously mislead people about their health. The move came in a sharply worded letter to 23andMe, a California start-up backed by Google. The company says that its Personal Genome Service can detect more than 240 genetic conditions and traits, flagging a person’s vulnerability to heart disease, breast cancer and other illnesses. The privately held company, founded in 2006, is headed by biologist and businesswoman Anne Wojcicki, who is separated from Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The FDA said the company repeatedly has failed to provide the scientific data necessary to prove that its test works as advertised.
