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Consumer Genetic Tests May Have a Lot of False Positives (theverge.com)
A new study, published in the journal Genetics in Medicine, found that consumer genetic tests bring up a lot of false positives. "In this case, 40 percent of the results from the consumer tests were false positives," reports The Verge, noting that the findings "cover a very small sample size and don't show that consumer tests always have a 40 percent false positive rate." From the report: The research was done by scientists at Ambry Genetics, a medical laboratory in California. By looking through their own database, they found that 49 people had been referred to them because of some worrying results from their consumer genetic tests. Still, scientists at Ambry were able to confirm only 60 percent of the results when they compared the raw data from consumer tests with more thorough genetic tests done by themselves and other clinical laboratories. So, 40 percent of variants in a variety of genes reported in DTC raw data were false positives, meaning that they said a genetic variant was there when it wasn't. (Most of these turned out to be variants linked to cancer.) Additionally, the authors write, some variants classified as "increased risk" were not only classified as "benign" by clinical laboratories, but they were actually common variants.
Do you **REALLY** think these companies are going to put up a legal fight for you when your DNA is requested by the government?
There's a massive incentive to *find something* if you're paying to have a check done... if you get nothing reported then the value of the test seems to be nothing. If you are told to be "at risk" for some condition then you can go to your friends and tell them that you had no idea and that it was so worth it and that now you can take steps... and that perhaps they should get tested too. The best part is that if you're just reported to be "at risk", rather than an actual diagnosis, there's almost no need for accuracy. If you never develop the condition it will be far in the future, and/or you got 'lucky'.