Some bloggers are huge fans of genetic testing. They frequently post articles promoting one of the private companies that charge you for doing these tests. ScienceRoll recently posted this video of Anne Wojcicki making a pitch for her company. Wojcicki is one of the co-founders of 23andMe. It's interesting to see how she mixes various rationales for genetic testing with a pitch for 23andMe.
Imagine this was a talk by the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company about the importance of their drugs and why you should buy them. We would probably be more skeptical than we seem to be about Ann Wojcicki. Why is that?
I couldn't stomach listening to the whole thing. I realise it's not relevant to the discussion but does she really have to turn every sentence into a question and use "totally" and "like" like a ditzy teenager?
ReplyDeleteI don't really think of 23 and me's services as genetic testing as it isn't for a particular disease. I have a lot of respect for a company that is trying to do something different to get personalized medicine kick started. It's the kind of thing that Craig Venter's Celera should have done first. That being said I'm not going to shell out for their services anytime soon. And I recently read that they are in financial trouble and have only had 35000 customers since being named Innovation of the year by Time magazine.
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