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A new market is booming thanks to the Internet, where citizens eager to know more about themselves can purchase tests for predisposition to various diseases, paternity tests and genetic testing.

The emerging market for genetic testing on open access has increased significantly, responding to increasing demands for autonomy of individuals.

However, this raises many problems, particularly with respect to reliability, its secrecy, its usefulness, its impact on the user and their ability to correctly interpret the results.

The number of genetic tests available - more than 1,000 now - was multiplied by three between 2001 and 2007. Its scope is broad, ranging from identification of a suspect until predictive medicine through the establishment of a pedigree.

The legal framework varies from country to country, but the Internet allows easily overcome the barriers imposed by states.

Since late 2007, several start-up "(under construction companies) were launched for sale online testing kits on the genome that allow, paying between 640 and 1,600 euros, to know his ancestry or his predisposition for certain ills : Alzheimer's, cancer of the breast, colon, prostate, glaucoma or diabetes. All this, without going through a doctor.

Google has invested four million dollars in each of the two U.S. companies 23andMe and Navigenics, the best known along with DecodeMe offshoot of the company DeCode Genetics.

Some 30 Internet sites, mostly American, currently offer tests of susceptibility to diseases, according to a recent French parliamentary report.

Many of the diseases for which there are these tests, according to the experts, put into play simultaneously several genes and environmental factors. That requires great caution in the interpretation of which depends on the "probability".

It also raises ethical questions when it comes to "predict" the emergence of a disease is not known neither prevent nor cure. Or when it is used for research data of individual customers.



Do you need then a regulation of the commercial offer on the Internet at international level? In an article published in November in the scientific journal Nature, Barbara Prainsack (Center for Biomedicine and Society, King's College, London) recognized the need for regulation, but warned against an "overreaction."

Dra. Prainsack explained in the text that genetic testing on the Internet destroy the traditional boundaries (between doctors and those who are not among the experts and the "profane"). "We must go into these waters with open eyes, but without fear mojarnos," he concluded.