23andMe vs. the FDA in less than 4 minutes

Maggie Koerth 6:19 am Wed Nov 27, 2013

At what point does interesting-but-potentially-incorrect-or-misleading information become a potential threat to health? How do you regulate a product that current regulations were never set up to handle? The University of Michigan's Risk Science Center put together this quick cartoon that neatly summarizes the problems and questions at the heart of the FDA's crackdown on 23andMe, which Xeni wrote about on Monday.

A couple of other smart takes on this that have come out in the past couple of days:

• Genomics expert Michael Eisen delves deeper into the question of how we should regulate personal genetic testing.

• Journalist David Dobbs rounded up some diverse opinions. You should pay attention to his blog. He's been doing a lot of great reporting on genetics and culture and is planning on publishing a longer piece on the 23andMe stuff later this week.

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