[jdvolz]

Horrible headline.

I'm now more inclined to buy from 23andMe than I was before because I know they are doing legitimate science and reporting the results without prejudice.

Questions:

[1] Wouldn't it be worth funding this company just to find this out about Parkinson's disease?

[2] Is this a reason for them to pivot or adjust their marketing to talk about what their service does do well?

[wccrawford]

I've always been impressed with how honest their data seems to be on diseases. They made it very clear up front that it's all trial-and-error and they're doing the best they can with the data they have, and that advances are made all the time.

I doubt I would ever have paid full price for the service, but I got in during a sale and have been quite pleased for the money.

[rhplus]

Their business model for folks who got in on the $99 deal now seems be "Want to know your Alzheimer's risk? Pay more to get your DNA resequenced with our latest tools!"

How much is more? Another $299.

[novas0x2a]

Citation? I got in on the $99 + $5/mo deal at Christmas, and I have not once received an upsell request. I have, however, received updated results every month since then. Now, either they're holding results back in order to keep me on the hook, or they're actually running new tests as new papers are published.

I just checked a few of my recently-updated results, and all of them had new papers cited with recent publish dates. I spot-checked a few upstream from the most recent update, and it seems that half of the updated results had papers published in the last three months, and half of those were published in June.

I don't know where you got your information, but I've been quite happy with 23andme.

[brianleb]

> Their business model for folks who got in on the $99 deal now seems be "Want to know your Alzheimer's risk? Pay more to get your DNA resequenced with our latest tools!"

> How much is more? Another $299.

Incorrect on all counts. Current cost of the service is $99 + $9/month subscription which you may cancel. You also have the option to "bank" your saliva/DNA so that when they come up with a new gene chip, you will have results from that without having to repay. You just have to keep up your subscription, obviously. Since I got my results back I think they've been pushing updates about once a month (probably not a coincidence, but I don't feel like checking the exact dates), both times having information on genes covering 5-10 new topics.

What you describe did exist back when they switched from the v1 to the v2 gene chip (and I think the price was $399 at the time, no subscription existed), but now (v3) they have figured things out. I got in on "DNA day" this past April and paid $0 + subscription (so $100 for a year) and I chose the option to bank it, etc.

[streptomycin]

> [1] Wouldn't it be worth funding this company just to find this out about Parkinson's disease?

Only if they plan to branch out from genotyping into other areas of science, as the article describes how their research shows the limits of this approach in Parkinson's disease.

[jdvolz]

Maybe they only do the genotyping and other people can handle other aspects of disease prediction and prevention. Knowing something doesn't predict something else is just as good as knowing it does. In either case you need more information, but you've learned something.

[cake]

Terrible headline, I was reading the article trying to find out where exactly they stated that they disproved their business model.