After 23andMe, Another Personal Genetics Firm Is Charged with False Advertising

It sounded like a miracle of science and convenience: swab your cheek and drop the saliva sample in the mailbox and GeneLink Biosciences, a personal genetics company, would analyze your DNA and send back nutritional supplements customized to your personal genome. The regimen, the company promised, was good for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, insomnia and other ailments. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), however, thought it sounded like false advertising and brought a lawsuit against the company, charging its claims were misleading and not founded in sound science.

The case is the latest in the continuing controversy over personal DNA testing services. Two months ago the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned 23andMe to stop marketing some of its personal genetics health services because the company failed to prove those tests worked and the agency worried about the public health consequences of inaccurate results.* The GeneLink case, the FTC’s first against a personal genomics company, could serve as a shot across the bow to other similar businesses. Under the terms of a proposed settlement announced on January 7, Orlando, Fla.–based GeneLink...