Tougher Controls Sought For DNA Ancestry Testing

As the popularity of take-home DNA kits to trace ancestry or calculate the risk for serious medical conditions grows, there is an increasingly critical need for federal oversight of "direct-to consumer" genetic testing, as well as of the use of DNA samples for research, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and several other academic institutions.

In the past year, scientists, sociologists and bioethicists, among others, have come to agree that the technology of these direct-to-consumer tests, which run between $100 and $1,000 apiece, is problematic and that the test results can be misleading and lead to problems including skewed ethnic data and questionable membership claims to Native American tribes.

But while organizations such as the American Society of Human Genetics have issued guidelines to curb the unintended consequences and misuses of DNA testing, federal agencies need to step in and help shape a "gold standard" in genetic ancestry testing, according to a policy paper published in the July 3 issue of the journal Science and coauthored by researchers from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Texas, University of Wisconsin and New York University.

You can read more in Red Orbit at http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1716235/tougher_controls_sought_for_dna_ancestry_testing.

Comments

[Tom Kuehn]

The link as posted did not work for me. A search of the Red Orbit site found the article but it only works with the /index.html at the end as follows: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1716235/tougher_controls_sought_for_dna_ancestry_testing/index.html

[Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak]

I'm one of many who believes that critics of genetic genealogy are over-reaching. For that reason, to keep up to date and get a more balanced perspective, I'd like to suggest that those interested subscribe to the recently launched DTC Watch blog (DTC = direct to consumer): http://dtcwatch.blogspot.com/

Also, Blaine Bettinger has written an excellent critique of the above-referenced critique of genetic genealogy here: http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2009/07/02/a-critique-of-genetic-ancestry-testing-in-science-magazine/

[Melissadr]

I agree with you Megan, thanks for the links, very informative.
Wasn't the State of California attempting to control or limit genetic testing within it's borders? Seems like I read something about that a year or 2 ago. That has as much chance of being good the the researcher/consumer as the government has of making a profit!

[Doris Wheeler]

I too disagree with those who wake each morning, wring their hands and wonder, What new controls can we (the exalted few) impose on all the ignorant people out there. I've vented on my own blog: "Will genetic genealogy lose its place?" at http://genealogyanddna.blogspot.com/

Doris