5 ms·

That's overly reductive. There are people making lifestyle changes and healthcare decisions in reaction to the results of their DNA test, so the accuracy of the

That's overly reductive. There are people making lifestyle changes and healthcare decisions in reaction to the results of their DNA test, so the accuracy of these tests may be more important than "woops, we placed you in the wrong European ethnic group". And I guess we remove all oversight now because of a bad example? Pack it in, FDA. We're done monitoring food safety thanks to cookie banners.

dahfizz 8y ago
You're being equally reductive. Obviously all of this exists on a spectrum. Most reasonable people would agree that the FDA is a net positive. Most reasonable people would agree that the government monitoring every private conversation happening in the country and jailing everyone who tells a lie would be a net negative. The happy medium for government checks on behavior is somewhere in the middle. Your parent makes the argument, very reasonably imo, that the overhead and cost of regulating these types of company's results are not worth the upside. People make lifestyle choices based on things they hear from palm readers - we don't use the government to regulate and test the validity of psychics. I think this falls into the same category.
- panopticon 8y ago
  > The happy medium for government checks on behavior is somewhere in the middle. That was my point. > Your parent makes the argument, very reasonably imo, that the overhead and cost of regulating these types of company's results are not worth the upside. I think we read different comments; all I got was a snarky condemnation of government oversight.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  > Most reasonable people would agree that the FDA is a net positive. A 1974 study by University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman concluded that since 1962 the new rules had reduced the rate of introduction of effective new drugs significantly—from an average of forty-three annually in the decade before the amendments to just sixteen annually in the ten years afterward. ... The severest criticism leveled at the drug lag is that without access to a drug available elsewhere, seriously ill patients will suffer or even die. Peltzman raised the subject in his 1974 study. He noted pharmacologist William Wardell's estimate that because the relatively safe hypnotic drug nitrazepam was not cleared for use in the United States until 1971, five years after it was available in Britain, more than 3,700 Americans may have died from less safe sedatives and hypnotics. After earning the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1988, U.S. drug researcher George Hitchings of Burroughs Wellcome Company said of an antileukemia drug he helped develop before the 1962 amendments: "We went from synthesis to the commercial drug in three years. That is absolutely impossible today." http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/DrugLag.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/DrugLag.html At this rate, the benefits of FDA regulation relative to that in foreign countries could reasonably be put at some 5,000 casualties per decade, or 10,000 per decade for worst-case scenarios. In comparison, it has been argued above that the cost of FDA delay can be estimated at anywhere from 21,000 to 120,000 lives per decade. These figures would seem to support the conclusion that the costs of post—1962 regulation outweigh benefits by a wide margin, similar to Peltzman's results of a 4:1 cost-benefit ratio for the 1962 amendments. "The Safety and Efficacy of New Drug Approval", https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/feb9/53ab293f24a14b3b3d4b748281420099b4b1.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/feb9/53ab293f24a14b3b3d4b74...
hatchnyc 8y ago
This is the product they are offering, they're telling you which ethnic groups you match, this is what is being discussed, this is what is being criticized as inaccurate. What is being proposed here here is someone from the government to step in and look over their shoulder and make sure they approve of the methodology being used to generate the results. If a company is making health claims there's already abundant regulation in place to prevent you from making unfounded statements. If you are making health decisions based on an Ancestry DNA test without consulting a doctor, you're clearly on your own.
skwb 8y ago
Well let us not forget that not too long ago 23 and Me swayed a little too far into this area with warfarin sensitivity (circa 2014 I think). https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm376296.htm https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/...
gjs278 8y ago
anyone who changes their lifestyle as the result of a faulty, voluntary DNA test deserves whatever consequences that happen
buboard 8y ago
they can't offer health results at all in most of europe and other countries. I don't think that's fair either, why is my government trying to protect me from learning anything about my genotype? Especially considering european countries that have socialized healthcare (and thus healthcare costs cannot be affected by letting this info out). This legislation does not make sense. https://int.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/217696258-Will-I-receive-health-reports- https://int.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/21769...

dahfizz 8y ago

You're being equally reductive. Obviously all of this exists on a spectrum. Most reasonable people would agree that the FDA is a net positive. Most reasonable people would agree that the government monitoring every private conversation happening in the country and jailing everyone who tells a lie would be a net negative. The happy medium for government checks on behavior is somewhere in the middle. Your parent makes the argument, very reasonably imo, that the overhead and cost of regulating these types of company's results are not worth the upside. People make lifestyle choices based on things they hear from palm readers - we don't use the government to regulate and test the validity of psychics. I think this falls into the same category.

panopticon 8y ago
> The happy medium for government checks on behavior is somewhere in the middle. That was my point. > Your parent makes the argument, very reasonably imo, that the overhead and cost of regulating these types of company's results are not worth the upside. I think we read different comments; all I got was a snarky condemnation of government oversight.
waterhouse 8y ago
> Most reasonable people would agree that the FDA is a net positive. A 1974 study by University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman concluded that since 1962 the new rules had reduced the rate of introduction of effective new drugs significantly—from an average of forty-three annually in the decade before the amendments to just sixteen annually in the ten years afterward. ... The severest criticism leveled at the drug lag is that without access to a drug available elsewhere, seriously ill patients will suffer or even die. Peltzman raised the subject in his 1974 study. He noted pharmacologist William Wardell's estimate that because the relatively safe hypnotic drug nitrazepam was not cleared for use in the United States until 1971, five years after it was available in Britain, more than 3,700 Americans may have died from less safe sedatives and hypnotics. After earning the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1988, U.S. drug researcher George Hitchings of Burroughs Wellcome Company said of an antileukemia drug he helped develop before the 1962 amendments: "We went from synthesis to the commercial drug in three years. That is absolutely impossible today." http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/DrugLag.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/DrugLag.html At this rate, the benefits of FDA regulation relative to that in foreign countries could reasonably be put at some 5,000 casualties per decade, or 10,000 per decade for worst-case scenarios. In comparison, it has been argued above that the cost of FDA delay can be estimated at anywhere from 21,000 to 120,000 lives per decade. These figures would seem to support the conclusion that the costs of post—1962 regulation outweigh benefits by a wide margin, similar to Peltzman's results of a 4:1 cost-benefit ratio for the 1962 amendments. "The Safety and Efficacy of New Drug Approval", https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/feb9/53ab293f24a14b3b3d4b748281420099b4b1.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/feb9/53ab293f24a14b3b3d4b74...

hatchnyc 8y ago

This is the product they are offering, they're telling you which ethnic groups you match, this is what is being discussed, this is what is being criticized as inaccurate. What is being proposed here here is someone from the government to step in and look over their shoulder and make sure they approve of the methodology being used to generate the results. If a company is making health claims there's already abundant regulation in place to prevent you from making unfounded statements. If you are making health decisions based on an Ancestry DNA test without consulting a doctor, you're clearly on your own.

skwb 8y ago

Well let us not forget that not too long ago 23 and Me swayed a little too far into this area with warfarin sensitivity (circa 2014 I think). https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm376296.htm https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/...

gjs278 8y ago

anyone who changes their lifestyle as the result of a faulty, voluntary DNA test deserves whatever consequences that happen

buboard 8y ago

they can't offer health results at all in most of europe and other countries. I don't think that's fair either, why is my government trying to protect me from learning anything about my genotype? Especially considering european countries that have socialized healthcare (and thus healthcare costs cannot be affected by letting this info out). This legislation does not make sense. https://int.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/217696258-Will-I-receive-health-reports- https://int.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/21769...