Advice for doctors on dealing with personal genomics customers

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.

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As the Andrew Yates' mother, I am very pleased that you appreciate his astute and acidic analysis.

By Jane Yates (not verified) on 09 Dec 2008 #permalink

Pleased to meet you, Mrs Yates. Care to share any embarrassing stories from Andrew's childhood?

lol, I was showing her how to install the news.thinkgene.com widget, and look what I get.

By Andrew Yates (not verified) on 09 Dec 2008 #permalink

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.

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.

So what does Jane Yates do for a living? Is Jane a doctor like her son will be some day?