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The Opt Out: 5 reasons to skip at-home genetic testing

PopSci: “In the last decade direct-to-consumer genetic tests like those from Ancestry.com and 23andMe have become ubiquitous in the US. These services cater to Americans looking for distant relatives, a missing piece of their history, or insight into their health. But if you can’t wait to swab your cheeks or spit into a plastic tube (or have done so already), you should know the privacy risks involved in putting your entire genome in the mail.  Maybe your information becomes a financial asset in a merger, or the service’s terms and conditions change without notice, or the company stores your biological sample in perpetuity. All of these scenarios might allow companies to handle and analyze your data in a way you haven’t consented to. This could be especially perilous if upcoming technologies and methods permit others to use your genome in currently unknown ways, creating problems we cannot even imagine…”

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