6 ms·

I am adopted. I spent most of my life having absolutely no idea whatsoever where I was from, or what biological risk factors I might have. 23andme was valuable

by dkh 2y ago

I am adopted. I spent most of my life having absolutely no idea whatsoever where I was from, or what biological risk factors I might have. 23andme was valuable to me on many levels, and even with the state the company currently finds itself in, it is not a decision I regret. My wife also did 23andme some years ago, through which she discovered she had Factor V Leiden—a fact which became extremely important very soon after her discovering it, leading directly to changes in her treatment and how closely they monitored her for blood clots (she had a PFO and some other stuff going on that was already compounding her risk of clotting and stroke), and very possibly may have saved her life. I’m supposed to go in and delete every trace of it out of fear of what the down-on-their-luck company might, or simply could, do? While I know that my experience might be rare, I would regardless suggest that you reserve your skepticism, because you aren’t really in a position to assess who did or did not derive a justifiable amount of value from it or how informed of a human being they are

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Your experience may be unique but I don't think it's exactly rare. I'm just another random anecdote, but I also found I had Factor V Leiden through 23 and me. Also, I'm gay, and for a long time was the only gay person I knew in my extended family. Through 23 and me I discovered a 2nd cousin who also is gay, and I met him in real life and it was an incredibly meaningful and important experience in my life.
- dkh 2y ago
  One of my good friends discovered her biological half-brother on 23andMe who she had never been told about. They met up, and got along remarkably well, and have actually remained pretty close since! These things do happen. Glad you got something out of it, too. Yeah, these experiences may or may not be rare. I was positing that they might be rare mostly to try to meet the person I was responded to halfway and because I don't actually have evidence one way or the other
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    While perhaps not as immediately "positive" an experience, there was a bunch of press last year about how consumer DNA tests were uncovering that incest was much more common than previously believed: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests...
    - aucisson_masque 2y ago
      That’s definitely interesting to learn you are the great great son of an incest !
- vinni2 2y ago
  Did you find out your cousin was gay through 23 and me or from him?
  - dkh 2y ago
    This is not the sort of thing a genetic test can determine
    - BurningFrog 2y ago
      Give it time...
      - wizzwizz4 2y ago
        It might not happen. Fingerprints are partly heritable – immigration delay disease, for example, has an identifiable point mutation – but you'd be laughed out of the room if you tried to suggest that given time, we would eventually be able to predict fingerprints from genomes. Non-heterosexual behaviour can be observed in most social amniotes, even those without fingerprints. Genetically-identical twins do not have identical sexual proclivities. There's no a priori reason to believe there's even a "gay gene" to find.
        BurningFrog 2y ago
        I looked it up, and twin studies say sexual orientation is party genetic, but it's far from the only factor. So at most a perfect genetic test could give a percentage chance of someone being gay/straight. I guess that's pretty much what you said.
        wizzwizz4 2y ago
        And either gayness is evolutionarily beneficial (kin selection?), or it's so fundamental to amniote psychology that evolution can't get rid of it. (Or both, I guess.)
    - asdfasvea 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
amarshall 2y ago
Genetic testing isn’t the exclusive realm of 23andme, you can get it done through a medical provider as well who doesn’t have such privacy-violating terms.
- dkh 2y ago
  Right now, yes. But early in 23andMe's history (I got it done at the very beginning) they were pretty much the only game in town. They were the first to make such a service widely accessible to the public, and they helped establish the market in which better alternatives would eventually emerge. I don't tell anyone now to use 23andMe specifically, but the warnings and risks being discussed here apply to existing customers, to people who have already done it, and I am just speaking as one of those people.
- rafaelmn 2y ago
  How does genetic testing help connect with biological relatives - that only works if there's a database people signed up to ?
  - kylecazar 2y ago
    If you're talking about finding specific biological ancestors (names) then yes. But certain general ancestral data can be deduced from variations in your DNA that are observed in some known current/historical population. I.e, I share much in common with people sampled from Scotland -> I must be Scottish.
    - vintermann 2y ago
      People are warned not to put much trust into the ethnicity estimates, sometimes even by the services themselves. Telling western Europeans apart is hard. It's either matching to specific people in the service's reference group who have declared that they are Scottish, or it's trying to guess based on the mix of ancestral populations 2000+ years ago ("western hunter gatherer", "early Neolithic farmer" etc.)
- jjani 2y ago
ipaddr 2y ago
Similar situation, I did a number of tests( ancestry, myheritage, 23andme, etc) the information it provided answered many questions, and introduced people I never would have expected to my family tree (half brother/sister, etc). 23andme had little data on my fathers side so it split my mothers side into my family tree at the great grandfather level. I spent awhile tracing people only to discover my father and mother side seemed to be related. After going on Ancestry I was able to figure the mistake. Myheritage had European links. 23andme North American links. Ancestry had everything. The genetic time period they match against are different. 23andme matches against 100ad while ancestry 1200ad. So if you are Celtic perhaps your people were in Spain in 100ad but in Ireland or Scotland by 1200. Using different services gives you a fuller picture and understanding of human migration and your migration. The difference from 23andme telling you you are broadly northwestern european vs Cornish/Welsh/Scottish is huge but illustrates what you match against really changes your identity.
- krior 2y ago
  I get the medical angle, but I cannot understand why it would matter to know that some distant ancestor may be from scotland. Is that really worth turning over your detailed biological build plan with all its flaws to some shady cooperation?
  - tiahura 2y ago
    Do you have any examples of people being harmed, or are you just spreading FUD?
    - anon_e-moose 2y ago
      Try reading some on history from the 1940s, ask yourself if that might happen again, and reevaluate what your parent post says.
      - clown_strike 2y ago
        [flagged]
panxyh 2y ago
GP is not assessing who did or did not, he's expressing valid scepticism about proportion of people that give the issue much though being any high. You being a sample of one doesn't give you any position either, but I won't be suggesting reserving your enthusiasm.
ashoeafoot 2y ago
Your descendants are now uninsureable for thrombosis related ailments ?
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  Uninsurable where? In the US most people get their insurance through group policies, either through their employer or through the government marketplace. Life insurance companies might be able to make use of your DNA information to alter rates, but I don't see how medical insurance would be able to do so.
  - mcculley 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrim...
    - jkaplowitz 2y ago
      The very link you’re sharing says it doesn’t apply to life insurance, disability insurance, and long-term care insurance.
      - mcculley 2y ago
        Quite right. The comment to which I replied said, "I don't see how medical insurance would be able to do so" and I was adding a data point.
- tiahura 2y ago
  Shouldn’t people predisposed to speeding pay more for car insurance?
  - dkh 2y ago
    Are you actually condoning this practice? Speeding is a choice, one that's extremely easy to change, and it ultimately an exceedingly trivial matter. You are born with your genetics, and you can’t change them. You are them. They will likely impact how and you die. All you can do is be aware of them so you can try to be proactive. So there’s really no comparison between that and voluntarily driving a car too fast If that’s genuinely how it worked, where the more health problems you are at risk for, the more money you have to pay, this would result in the people who already have the shittiest stuff to deal with in their lives having that compounded by also having to pay more than everybody else. Not sure what more needs to be said, but if there is anyone out there who is unconvinced, I probably won’t be inviting them to dinner parties anytime soon
evrydayhustling 2y ago
I'm totally with you on the value prop at the time we signed up. I was more surprised that it sounds like you are reluctant to delete now, when the company is going through an unpredictable transition. Did I get that right? If so, is there an ongoing value you want to maintain, or it more out of respect for the organization that provided you value in the past?

by dkh 2y ago

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

Your experience may be unique but I don't think it's exactly rare. I'm just another random anecdote, but I also found I had Factor V Leiden through 23 and me. Also, I'm gay, and for a long time was the only gay person I knew in my extended family. Through 23 and me I discovered a 2nd cousin who also is gay, and I met him in real life and it was an incredibly meaningful and important experience in my life.

dkh 2y ago
One of my good friends discovered her biological half-brother on 23andMe who she had never been told about. They met up, and got along remarkably well, and have actually remained pretty close since! These things do happen. Glad you got something out of it, too. Yeah, these experiences may or may not be rare. I was positing that they might be rare mostly to try to meet the person I was responded to halfway and because I don't actually have evidence one way or the other
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  While perhaps not as immediately "positive" an experience, there was a bunch of press last year about how consumer DNA tests were uncovering that incest was much more common than previously believed: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests-incest/677791/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests...
  - aucisson_masque 2y ago
    That’s definitely interesting to learn you are the great great son of an incest !
vinni2 2y ago
Did you find out your cousin was gay through 23 and me or from him?
- dkh 2y ago
  This is not the sort of thing a genetic test can determine
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    Give it time...
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      It might not happen. Fingerprints are partly heritable – immigration delay disease, for example, has an identifiable point mutation – but you'd be laughed out of the room if you tried to suggest that given time, we would eventually be able to predict fingerprints from genomes. Non-heterosexual behaviour can be observed in most social amniotes, even those without fingerprints. Genetically-identical twins do not have identical sexual proclivities. There's no a priori reason to believe there's even a "gay gene" to find.
      - BurningFrog 2y ago
        I looked it up, and twin studies say sexual orientation is party genetic, but it's far from the only factor. So at most a perfect genetic test could give a percentage chance of someone being gay/straight. I guess that's pretty much what you said.
        wizzwizz4 2y ago
        And either gayness is evolutionarily beneficial (kin selection?), or it's so fundamental to amniote psychology that evolution can't get rid of it. (Or both, I guess.)
  - asdfasvea 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

amarshall 2y ago

Genetic testing isn’t the exclusive realm of 23andme, you can get it done through a medical provider as well who doesn’t have such privacy-violating terms.

dkh 2y ago
Right now, yes. But early in 23andMe's history (I got it done at the very beginning) they were pretty much the only game in town. They were the first to make such a service widely accessible to the public, and they helped establish the market in which better alternatives would eventually emerge. I don't tell anyone now to use 23andMe specifically, but the warnings and risks being discussed here apply to existing customers, to people who have already done it, and I am just speaking as one of those people.
rafaelmn 2y ago
How does genetic testing help connect with biological relatives - that only works if there's a database people signed up to ?
- kylecazar 2y ago
  If you're talking about finding specific biological ancestors (names) then yes. But certain general ancestral data can be deduced from variations in your DNA that are observed in some known current/historical population. I.e, I share much in common with people sampled from Scotland -> I must be Scottish.
  - vintermann 2y ago
    People are warned not to put much trust into the ethnicity estimates, sometimes even by the services themselves. Telling western Europeans apart is hard. It's either matching to specific people in the service's reference group who have declared that they are Scottish, or it's trying to guess based on the mix of ancestral populations 2000+ years ago ("western hunter gatherer", "early Neolithic farmer" etc.)
jjani 2y ago

ipaddr 2y ago

Similar situation, I did a number of tests( ancestry, myheritage, 23andme, etc) the information it provided answered many questions, and introduced people I never would have expected to my family tree (half brother/sister, etc). 23andme had little data on my fathers side so it split my mothers side into my family tree at the great grandfather level. I spent awhile tracing people only to discover my father and mother side seemed to be related. After going on Ancestry I was able to figure the mistake. Myheritage had European links. 23andme North American links. Ancestry had everything. The genetic time period they match against are different. 23andme matches against 100ad while ancestry 1200ad. So if you are Celtic perhaps your people were in Spain in 100ad but in Ireland or Scotland by 1200. Using different services gives you a fuller picture and understanding of human migration and your migration. The difference from 23andme telling you you are broadly northwestern european vs Cornish/Welsh/Scottish is huge but illustrates what you match against really changes your identity.

krior 2y ago
I get the medical angle, but I cannot understand why it would matter to know that some distant ancestor may be from scotland. Is that really worth turning over your detailed biological build plan with all its flaws to some shady cooperation?
- tiahura 2y ago
  Do you have any examples of people being harmed, or are you just spreading FUD?
  - anon_e-moose 2y ago
    Try reading some on history from the 1940s, ask yourself if that might happen again, and reevaluate what your parent post says.
    - clown_strike 2y ago
      [flagged]

panxyh 2y ago

GP is not assessing who did or did not, he's expressing valid scepticism about proportion of people that give the issue much though being any high. You being a sample of one doesn't give you any position either, but I won't be suggesting reserving your enthusiasm.

ashoeafoot 2y ago

Your descendants are now uninsureable for thrombosis related ailments ?

Mountain_Skies 2y ago
Uninsurable where? In the US most people get their insurance through group policies, either through their employer or through the government marketplace. Life insurance companies might be able to make use of your DNA information to alter rates, but I don't see how medical insurance would be able to do so.
- mcculley 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrim...
  - jkaplowitz 2y ago
    The very link you’re sharing says it doesn’t apply to life insurance, disability insurance, and long-term care insurance.
    - mcculley 2y ago
      Quite right. The comment to which I replied said, "I don't see how medical insurance would be able to do so" and I was adding a data point.
tiahura 2y ago
Shouldn’t people predisposed to speeding pay more for car insurance?
- dkh 2y ago
  Are you actually condoning this practice? Speeding is a choice, one that's extremely easy to change, and it ultimately an exceedingly trivial matter. You are born with your genetics, and you can’t change them. You are them. They will likely impact how and you die. All you can do is be aware of them so you can try to be proactive. So there’s really no comparison between that and voluntarily driving a car too fast If that’s genuinely how it worked, where the more health problems you are at risk for, the more money you have to pay, this would result in the people who already have the shittiest stuff to deal with in their lives having that compounded by also having to pay more than everybody else. Not sure what more needs to be said, but if there is anyone out there who is unconvinced, I probably won’t be inviting them to dinner parties anytime soon

evrydayhustling 2y ago

I'm totally with you on the value prop at the time we signed up. I was more surprised that it sounds like you are reluctant to delete now, when the company is going through an unpredictable transition. Did I get that right? If so, is there an ongoing value you want to maintain, or it more out of respect for the organization that provided you value in the past?