Popular genetic testing services can be misleading, inaccurate, and ethically questionable

Genetic testing used to be something that happened in a specialist clinic for those few families that had serious inherited conditions, like Huntington’s Disease or rare cancers. Now, new genetic tests called “polygenic risk scores” have increased access to genetic risk information for a wide range of conditions. With a few clicks of a mouse and a few hundred dollars, anyone can access their genetic risk scores for diabetes, obesity, breast cancer, autism, and schizophrenia. These scores aren’t always useful, and, in some cases, they could be harmful. Results can be misleading Previous approaches to genetic testing looked at just…

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