Word: directous
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...least 30 direct-to-consumer testing companies have answered the call, analyzing genetic information for curious consumers at anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars a pop. (One company charges $350,000 for whole-genome sequencing.) The services range from paternity and ancestry tests to risk assessments for specific diseases, such as breast cancer and Type 2 diabetes. Some tests look for single genes associated with disorders (baldness, in the case of HairDX); others, like 23andMe, one of the industry leaders, use a DNA chip to scan the entire genome in search of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs - genetic...
Currently this booming direct-to-consumer industry operates with little federal oversight and few industry guidelines. But the popularity of the genetic tests has snared the attention of state and federal regulators. A report released by a federal advisory committee in April recommended increasing federal regulation of the tests and creating a mandatory online registry of all laboratory genetic tests performed, but no action has yet been taken...
Meanwhile, representatives of leading companies, including 23andMe, Navigenics, deCODE Genetics and DNA Direct, have stepped into the void, launching discussions this month in Washington to devise their own voluntary standards, which they expect will promote integrity among their competitors. The companies said they will collaborate with the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), an educational nonprofit, to create the guidelines. They plan to present a draft of the new rules at a PMC conference in December, says Edward Abrahams, PMC's executive director...
...hands of a medical board. A physician thought to be incompetent must be accorded full protection of the law and can be punished only after a fair hearing, to which can be added the right of appeal. This is as it should be, but it takes time. Rather than direct criticism toward what is perceived as a protective-guild mentality among doctors, turn the attack on those who are in control of the investigation. At the present time, the medical profession occupies the uncomfortable seat of being held responsible for all medical discipline without authority over the process. The state...
...shipment of arms to the Nicaraguan port of Corinto. That the Sandinistas were receiving weapons made in the U.S.S.R. or East bloc countries was nothing new. But for the past 18 months, such shipments had been sent to Cuba and subsequently picked up by Nicaraguan vessels. The resumption of direct deliveries may reflect a new and unsettling boldness on Moscow's part. In the midst of the Administration's warnings about the Nicaraguan threat, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee released a report by the General Accounting Office, Congress's independent investigative unit, which presented dismaying evidence that much...