It’s been a rough couple of weeks for 23andMe. First, the federal Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to immediately halt sales of its flagship $99 at-home DNA tests. Now, in the midst of that regulatory maelstrom, 23andMe is being hit with a class-action lawsuit alleging that the firm misled consumers with advertising for its personalized genome services.
At issue is the fact that 23andMe is not simply a fun way for people to play with genetics. 23andMe and other similar consumer genetics companies have moved towards marketing their services as a way to predict, and perhaps prevent, future health problems. It’s 23andMe’s claims that its interpretations of users’ genomic data can provide health benefits, and not the genetic data itself, that’s the concern.
Read the full, original story here: DNA Testing Is Not Why 23andMe Is in Trouble
Additional Resources:
- “What Is 23andMe Really Selling: The Moral Quandary At The Center Of The Personalized Genomics Revolution,” Forbes
- “23andMe Scraps Health Analysis While It Fights With the FDA,” Bloomberg