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Comment by chaud | Hacker News Reader

I would like to know how the new report compares to the old one.

Also of note, the price has gone up from $99 (as of earlier this week) to $199.

edit: This NYTimes article has more details: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/business/23andme-will-resu...

Now, after nearly two years, 23andMe is announcing on Wednesday that it will begin providing customers with health information again, though much less than before and with F.D.A. approval.

The new health-related information 23andMe will provide is called carrier status. That relates to whether people have genetic mutations that could lead to a disease in their offspring, presuming the other parent has a mutation in the same gene and the child inherits both mutated genes. There will be information on 36 diseases, including cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and Tay-Sachs.

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I'm preparing a blog post on the differences between the old and new 23andMe reports, and how they compare to a raw data analysis with Enlis Genome Personal.

Here are the headline numbers-

Number of health-related traits reported: Old: 201 New: 36 RawData: 2109

Number of health-related variants reported: Old: 1283 New: 100 RawData: 13,537

I will also note that while they increased the price, they are still using the same genotyping chip that they released in December 2013

Not speaking to the price, this makes sense. To achieve FDA approval, their reporting is much more conservative. That's probably for the best.

I'm not saying you're wrong but would you mind explaining why you think that's for the best?

Statistics and risk are meaningless when your name is attached to the report.

To go to the extreme, a 0.001% chance of genetic disease can drive a person to make emotional decisions.

Can you check if they still report tongue rolling as a Mendelian trait?

I don't know anything about this particular filing, but the FDA is primarily concerned with you having demonstrated safety and efficacy.

For this reason, I would suspect the new reports will not include anything that they could not provide scientific evidence for effective differentiation, as well as anything without convincing argument that a report would not increase workup rates, etc. with some inherent risk.

I just like knowing I have the trait for smelling asparagus in urine.

This doesn't seem like something you'd need a genetic test to determine.

I guess that was the point of the joke. All the interesting pieces of information, and more, can't be released by order of the FDA.

Hahah agreed with @kej. Jokes aside, I've held off getting 23andMe because of this reason. Does anyone know?

There have always been partners you can get the entire suite of results from.[1] I don't know how they haven't been restricted, but my guess is the FDA can't ban telling you what a SNP does, but the FDA can ban 23 and me selling it as a service connected somehow? Anyways, you can find out everything you wanted to know and a million other things you probably will have trouble of fully understanding.

[1] https://promethease.com/ and athletigen are two I've used that were pretty cool

Wait; I thought you didn't...

The international version that only covers heritage still is priced 99$. The local versions outside of the US that provided health coverage already were priced higher before.

The price in Europe is 99% and 20% off for additional kits. Shipping cost would be 42.99/62.99 for std/express shipping that takes weeks.

It's been $199 CAD for at least a year or more now. I got mine when it was on a sale for $99.

I guess the US version has been priced differently?

Yes, they reduced the price to $99 in the US back in 2012.

When you use real money, things are cheaper.

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