Re:My deadly disease was just a 23andme bug
by InclinedPlane on Monday November 25, 2013 @08:59PM
(#6798573)
This is a poor argument founded on a handful of anecdotal experiences. The full reality of the situation is not embraced by your caricature of it.
I think you might have a bit of a different opinion if you had been incorrectly diagnosed with a more serious disease, such as cancer.
As a thought experiment imagine that I am a medical charlatan who is offering a test for women to find out if they have breast cancer. In truth the test is just a random chance of a positive diagnosis, dressed up with some props and procedures. What's the harm in this? Well, the harm is that you put someone through hell when they believe that they have cancer. And worse the harm is that it can often take some very invasive procedures that have a deleterious effect on health to conclusively determine if someone does have cancer or rule it out.
Which makes a false diagnosis more than just a mild scare but a very real burden. And also a drain on the health care system and the economy. Someone who undergoes unnecessary procedures, such as biopsies and blood work, will have those costs come out of their insurance most likely. Those costs come out of effectively a pool of money designated for covering procedures, shrinking that pool means that someone else will be denied coverage for some procedure or that premiums will go up for everyone.
Now one need not be an intentional charlatan as in the above example to nevertheless lead to the same harmful outcomes unintentionally. And that's the sort of thing that can, and apparently does, happen with 23+me. If people are getting told about "risk factors" for very serious diseases through tests that are not very reliable or diagnostic then that will likely lead to a lot of unnecessary procedures in order to double check those findings. With all of the problems resulting listed above. This is a problem that the medical establishment has to contend with even with highly accurate tests.
So yes, it is actually a serious problem with no easy solution. That doesn't mean that 23+me has to stop operating, but they need to be substantially more circumspect about their diagnoses.
I think you might have a bit of a different opinion if you had been incorrectly diagnosed with a more serious disease, such as cancer.
As a thought experiment imagine that I am a medical charlatan who is offering a test for women to find out if they have breast cancer. In truth the test is just a random chance of a positive diagnosis, dressed up with some props and procedures. What's the harm in this? Well, the harm is that you put someone through hell when they believe that they have cancer. And worse the harm is that it can often take some very invasive procedures that have a deleterious effect on health to conclusively determine if someone does have cancer or rule it out.
Which makes a false diagnosis more than just a mild scare but a very real burden. And also a drain on the health care system and the economy. Someone who undergoes unnecessary procedures, such as biopsies and blood work, will have those costs come out of their insurance most likely. Those costs come out of effectively a pool of money designated for covering procedures, shrinking that pool means that someone else will be denied coverage for some procedure or that premiums will go up for everyone.
Now one need not be an intentional charlatan as in the above example to nevertheless lead to the same harmful outcomes unintentionally. And that's the sort of thing that can, and apparently does, happen with 23+me. If people are getting told about "risk factors" for very serious diseases through tests that are not very reliable or diagnostic then that will likely lead to a lot of unnecessary procedures in order to double check those findings. With all of the problems resulting listed above. This is a problem that the medical establishment has to contend with even with highly accurate tests.
So yes, it is actually a serious problem with no easy solution. That doesn't mean that 23+me has to stop operating, but they need to be substantially more circumspect about their diagnoses.