When the Food & Drug Administration last November ordered the Mountain View, Calif.-based firm 23andMe to stop marketing its health-related genetic test kit to consumers, the ensuing debate took on a “rage against the machine” tenor. Entrepreneurs, patients’ rights advocates and genetics geeks across the country argued that the plodding, risk-averse regulators of the FDA had neither the right nor the expertise to insert themselves between people wishing to own whatever mysteries their genes contained, and a company that promised to deliver such information.
Now, however, a pair of respected experts in the dual fields of genetics and bioethics has weighed in — on the side of the FDA.
“The FDA was right to issue a warning to 23andMe,” write Boston University bioethicist George Annas and Northwestern University’s Dr. Sherman Elias, a professor emeritus of obstetrics and clinical genetics.
Read the full, original story: FDA wins high-profile support in consumer genetics kerfuffle
