Think Gene's Andrew Yates has posted generic responses for medical professionals to use when dealing with patients who come armed with their results from 23andMe or Navigenics.
They're probably quite useful little tools for busy doctors without the time to brush up on the field of personal genomics, but - seeing as this is Andrew Yates - they're also a dig at the careful "medicine but not medicine" stance of personal genomics companies.
An excerpt:
Thus, applying 23andMe to your health care would be a violation of the 23andMe terms of service and, as stated, it "cannot be relied upon at this point for diagnostic purposes." We think 23andMe is a great educational tool, and we are excited about its future potential, but we cannot use the test results to provide any medical services. Further, you consented to "not change your health behaviors on the basis of [23andMe]," so for us to counsel otherwise would be unethical.
Life Science
Comments
As the Andrew Yates' mother, I am very pleased that you appreciate his astute and acidic analysis.
Posted by: Jane Yates | December 9, 2008 6:03 PM
Pleased to meet you, Mrs Yates. Care to share any embarrassing stories from Andrew's childhood?
Posted by: Daniel MacArthur | December 9, 2008 6:11 PM
lol, I was showing her how to install the news.thinkgene.com widget, and look what I get.
Posted by: Andrew Yates | December 9, 2008 6:56 PM
Next thing you know she'll be putting photos of 3-year-old Andrew in the bath up on her blog.
Dude, that's like the fourth rule of the internet: don't let your parents on it.
Posted by: Daniel MacArthur | December 10, 2008 4:23 AM
It's true, though when she lost her blogger password, I didn't help her reset it! I admit, there were selfish reasons...
Ah, the holidays.
Posted by: Andrew Yates | December 10, 2008 9:10 AM
So what does Jane Yates do for a living? Is Jane a doctor like her son will be some day?
Posted by: N/A | December 10, 2008 2:15 PM