FRIDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) — At-home pregnancy tests can tell
you unequivocally in minutes whether a baby is on the way and if it is
time to call your doctor.
But, at-home genetic tests — which may offer tantalizing clues about
future health risks — are still in their infancy, and genetic counselors
are concerned that the results may puzzle or even panic consumers who
don’t seek professional guidance.
The explosion of direct-to-consumer genetic tests over the past several
years has made it seemingly simple to test for a wide variety of medical
scenarios. A swab of the cheek or a vial of blood can discern whether one
is a carrier of an inherited disorder such as cystic fibrosis, for
instance, or predict the risk for diseases such as breast cancer or
Parkinson’s. Newer tests purportedly predict how people might respond to a
specific drug or medical treatment.
But shelling out several hundred dollars or more for one of these
tests — which are widely available online — does not equip consumers to
understand the findings or their repercussions, genetic counselors say.
Because people might base medical decisions on the results, the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration decided this month to restrict
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