Washington - Some people who want their genome scanned are only worried about what their hair will be like when they get old. Others hope for answers to anxious questions about the future of their health, namely whether or not they are likely to contract a serious disease or die young. The information is found in the subjects' genetic code. To get an understanding of it, people in the United States are turning to increasingly popular genome scans offered on the internet. It's easy to order a test, which involves sending in a small sample of saliva and waiting for the results.
What customers then have access to is entirely open to interpretation, experts say and the customer is often led down the the wrong track. Skeptics consider the idea that genetic analysis can be achieved in a mouse click not fully developed.
In the US there are 35 companies offering such tests on the internet, costing up to 2,500 dollars. Customers primarily want to find out more about their hereditary predispositions and about possible genetic diseases they might have inherited.
To order a test, the customer first has to register on one of the websites. He or she then receives a test kit in the mail and sends in the saliva sample in a vial. A few weeks later the customer can read the genetic analysis at the company's website. As no specialist is on hand when the customer views the results, meaning anythingcan be read into it, the services have prompted a lot of skepticism.
The genetic information on the health of a human available in today's genome scans is limited or in some cases not medically useful, said Robert Green, professor of neurology, genetics and epidemiology, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, at a panel discussion recently in Washington, DC.
The information could cause the consumer to be unnecessarily alarmed or worried about the future of his health. Green conducted his own personal experiment. He sent saliva samples to two different genome scanning companies. One set of results showed that his risk of a heart attack was very high, the other showed the opposite, he said.
Nevertheless, there appears to be ever-increasing demand for genome scans offered on the internet. Reliable figures are not available because the companies are not required to reveal the number of customers they have.
Sara Huston Katsanis, a consultant with the Genetics & Public Policy Center, which follows and analyzes the public debate on genetic technology in the US, said this year alone five new genome scan companies have been founded, which indicates that the scans are becoming a societal trend.
Twenty-five of the 50 US states and Washington, DC, allow genome scans to be offered over the internet, said the Genetics & Public Policy Center. However, California recently struck a hard line, demanding the companies suspend sales until they have proved that the genome scans do not break current laws. It must determine whether the companies promise too much in their advertisements, according to the American Society for Human Genetics.
The two market leaders, 23andMe and Navigenics are persevering in the conflict with the state of California. Just a few months ago they each received a state license, granting them the right to continue offering genome scans.
They pointed out that they offer no medical examinations, rather a personal genetic testing service, the New York Times reported. Aside from that, they argued, consumers have a right to know what's in their own DNA. The companies stress that people have the right to know their own genome, Green was quoted as saying in USA Today.
"I think that's absolutely true," he added. "The counter-argument is what if people misunderstand or in some way the information is misrepresented?"
The company, 23andMe, has been offering internet-enabled genome scans in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since the beginning of the year.
"In Germany and Austria the procedure would be illegal, but because the company is based in California, it is unlikely that it will be prosecuted," Helge Torgersen, a biologist at a Vienna institute for technological impact assessment in the field of biotechnology and medical technology, said on Austrian television.
Science is developing rapidly, which is not only highly interesting for researchers, but for everyone who can profit from the applications of the new technology, said Dietrich Stephan, co-founder of Navigenics.
The advances make responsible treatment of the analysis necessary, and that's another area for business development. Stephan said his company is participating in a study to determine whether people understand the genetic information they receive and how they deal with it.
"Genetic information has a special power," said Green. "It has a feel of fate about it, a sense of inevitability, that sense that, 'Oh, you are marked'."
