There are some serious facts missing in the story here. When were his parents married? When was the half brother born? Was this a known fling? This was definitely something traumatic that happened, but we are left way too hanging for this to be an interesting story.
When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. "I thought it was the coolest genetics story, my own personal genetics story. I wasn't particularly upset about it initially, until the rest of the family found out, and their reaction was different."
His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son. "Years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that have torn my nuclear family apart. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet, and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."
Another article linked at the end of this one mentions a bit more. It says the unknown son was conceived before the writer's mother and father got together and that part of the upset of the family was that the father wished to connect with this new-found son against the wishes of other family members.
I also found it strange that they were opening up (albeit anonymously) about something very personal, but not really telling the story in a way that could have engaged us more.
I think the meat of the article is not the human drama that ensued, but the fact that there was an online service, and a button in the UI, that caused far more greater effect to the life of the whole family than just sating 'George's curiosity. Like there was a hypothetical Amazon order form that had an innocent radio button at the end with the legend 'Order free drone strike to the recipients address'.
Not sure that's relevant - that's the reality show part of the story. The point is the product that 23andme sells and the risk associated with it is not understood by their customer. In this case it's lead to a family break-up and therapy for the author.
I've been wondering if any agency in the US government has been using DNA databases to do "genetic triangulation"--and if not, when they'll start.
I'm in 23andme, and I get messages saying "someone who is your 4th/5th/6th cousin wants to connect" all the time. I figure if I was given a bit of DNA from a crime scene, by cross-referencing all of the 4th,5th, and 6th cousins, the number of potential people matching that DNA has got to be tiny.
Science fiction dystopias used to hypothesize a complete DNA database but I'm pretty sure even the spotty coverage we have now is pretty powerful.
DNA storage is a very tricky area ethically. You're dead right that even spotty coverage is sufficient to make all sort of inference, while on the other hand we have much more DNA from crime scenes than we have the resources to process, and when we do process it it can lead to the exoneration of people who were serving long sentences.
There is a team in Denmark, working on building body and face models from persons genetic code. Stuff like age, height range, skin, hair, eye color, big/small/regular nose, wide/narrow face.
Is it possible to do 23andMe pseudonymously? Mail them a money order and use a temp email address? I would never volunteer a dna sample like that clearly tied to my SSN.
I have always assumed that the airport scanners are also collecting biometrics on everyone for video identification purposes and for that reason I try to avoid them.
Summary: 23andMe's genetic database may uncover shitty behavior of people close to you that they would rather you not know about. They hide this behind a checkbox asking you if you want to see info about possible close relatives, but the author thinks there should be big flashing warnings that it might show information you aren't ready for.
Of course, the other way to interpret this is that his parents weren't really okay with the status quo, at least one of them either hadn't put enough thought into what happened, didn't know the whole story, or was entirely in the dark. The author may feel that it would be better to not know that information, but that information is truth, and represents who the people involved really are or were. I have little patience for being asked to help support others delusion.
Note that in this case, no shitty behavior was uncovered. I initially thought this story was going to be about adultery, but it turns out it wasn't:
> When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. [...] His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son.
The author suggests adding a warning about discovering relatives, but then he also admits that it wouldn't have made a difference in his case because he didn't think it would happen to him and he also couldn't have known his family would have reacted the way they did. In the end I don't think there is a technical solution that the genetics testing company can apply to make this any easier for humans to deal with. When you send your DNA to such a company you should be ready to deal with something like this.
They hide this behind a checkbox asking you if you want to see info about possible close relatives
They did. According to the editor, they don't anymore: "[Note: 23 and Me has since switched to an opt out system, where users will automatically be enrolled in the close relatives finder program.]"
>>"My parents divorced. No one is talking to my dad. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."
We don't know the circumstances under which the father and his then-girlfriend had given up their son for adoption. However, that seems to have happened decades ago.
I'm not sure why no one is now talking to the dad for something that happened decades ago.
I don't think you are meant to. The author is trying to write about the unexpected consequences, not put the consequences on display. It seems fairly likely that the falling out in the family would not have happened without the information provided by the genetic testing (or a similar revelation).
Perhaps he kept it as a secret all this time. Many people regard hiding such a fundamental piece of information for such a long time as a breach of trust. The interesting thing to me about the story is that a morally neutral technology can lead to bitter disagreements by unexpectedly presenting a moral dilemma.
Genetically it may be difficult to tell a grandfather from a half-brother, but logically it seems like you could easily add some basic checks like "is dude A more than x years older than dude B? No? Well lets rule grandfather out then".
I work for a major genetic research and diagnostics laboratory. This is what's known in the biz as "incidental findings" and in a clinical setting is an enormous no-no (not as big a deal in research).
It's this kind of careless disclosure of sensitive information that makes more than a few of the non-consumer-facing organizations (not to mention the FDA) a bit wary of companies like 23andMe.
I haven't used 23andMe so I can't speak to how well their ordering system addresses this issue beyond what the article states. Regardless, customers ordering these kinds of panels should be well informed as to what they're getting into.
I'm not sure the disclosure (of a related DNA sequence) was careless. In fact, having millions of correlated DNA sequences might prove quite profitable someday.
Although I'm a bit surprised that to remove DNA info, you need to close your entire account, at which point they will "remove all Genetic Information within your account (or profile) within thirty (30) days of our receipt of your request".
Or maybe not:
"Our contracted genotyping laboratory may also retain your Genetic Information as required by local law and we may retain backup copies for a limited period of time pursuant to our data protection policies."
I have a similar situation. I had a close cousin contact me on 23 and me that I wasn't familar with. He is adopted and looking for his parents. My dad took the test so we have narrowed it down. He recently found his mom, so I know it's his dad that I'm related to. Bottom line, we still haven't figured out who the dad is and I'm afraid to push it because it may cause an outcome like this. I invited the adopted cousin to a family reunion but he declined.
Life is way to short to hide behind fear of the unknown. Think of yourself in these shoes? Would you want to be held back by someone well meaning? I personally wouldn't. I can't even begin to fathom what being estranged from your parents feels like and I'm not about to ever get in the way of someone trying to reconcile that if I have even the slightest bit of information that can help relieve that. It's not my place to deny them. If that brings hell to my family, I would tell them to put their big boy/girl pants on and grow the fuck up, full stop and I completely adore my family. This isn't a decision they get to stop, stifle, or refute. Let the estranged cousin make all the decisions. You're there to help empower them to do what they feel lead to pursue, nothing more or less.
I hope none of this feels like a personal attack. At the end of the day you're still entitled to your decision and opinion. I just know how I would feel or act. The feelings of only one person matter in this instance and it wouldn't be me, if I were in your shoes.
Genetic testing is a really cool concept. There is a parallel with the internet, is that for every new person tested value of testing increases for everyone. Sufficient number of people tested should allow us to identify really subtle patterns in genetic code and will be a boon in healthcare and family planning. For example a dating site, that takes genes into account while matching people. Unfortunately there are huge privacy implications to consider.
IMHO, genetic testing wasn't the cause of the divorce; it was the family's intransigence at the dad wanting to get in touch with his long-lost son. What kind of a people are these, that they'd want to kick the father out for wanting to get in touch with a son he never knew he had, from before the marriage?
I wonder how many sperm or egg donors will register on 23andme and receive an interesting email... Or how many children conceived in that way will find half brothers and half sisters. I wonder if you could see traces of "prolific" sperm donors via their related offspring...
"We can't be sure, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and its hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex."
Who has college yearbook photos? I don't remember any yearbook, and it certainly doesn't have my photograph in it. There were something like 25,000 undergrads anyway - how would that even work?
Somewhere, there's a product manager or developer coming to terms with the fact that the decision to check that box by default tore at least one family apart.
This is confusing. "This is how it happened: when you share around 25 percent genetic similarity with someone, that means that either it's your grandfather, uncle, or half-sibling".
I have half my dad's DNA and half my mom's, so does my sister. So therefore wouldn't we both share 50% of our DNA? If we were brothers it would be closer to 100%. So a half sibling should be the same as a sister in this aspect. I have a half brother too, so we both got 50% of our DNA from our mother. So we are 50% similar, not 25%.
You got 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes, and your half-brother got a different set of 23 of your mother's 46 chromosomes. On average 11.5 of those chromosomes will be the exact same ones -- that's 25% of your total DNA.
With a full sibling of the opposite sex, you share about 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes (half of the 23 each of you got from mom will be the same) and 11.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22; you know the 23rd is different), for a total of 22.5 out of 46 which is 49%.
If you're both the same sex, you share on average 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes and 12.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22, and you know the 23rd is the same), which makes you around 51% similar.
No, I think your concept of genetics and reproduction is wrong. You receive a random 0.5 of genes from Dad and your sibling receives another random 0.5 from Dad. This means you share 0.25 from Dad.
I'm amazed at people preferring living under a lie for the rest of their lives and dying like that than finding out the truth in case it might be bitter. I would trade a supernuclear family for truth any day of the week.
Slightly off topic, but no wonder it's also difficult to make people realize the reality about religion(s). The same 'ignorance is bliss' head-in-the-sand mentality is working behind the scenes many times.
I've never understood the dynamic between 23andMe and the FDA. It's just information - what's to stop someone from setting up the same service in Bermuda? Would they really stop Americans from mailing a spit kit somewhere?
I'm just trying to think about what would happen if those parents in the story were me and my wife. Would we break apart? I'm guessing/hoping no, but the real answer may be completely different.
On one hand, I believe that people have the right to know the truth to things; on the other hand, not many people are able to really handle the unpleasant ones.
Sometimes I wonder, did forgetting/hiding of the hard truth caused the inability to handle them? Or because of?
[+] [-] Sanddancer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jobu|11 years ago|reply
When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. "I thought it was the coolest genetics story, my own personal genetics story. I wasn't particularly upset about it initially, until the rest of the family found out, and their reaction was different."
His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son. "Years of repressed memories and emotions uncorked and resulted in tumultuous times that have torn my nuclear family apart. We're not anywhere close to being healed yet, and I don't know how long it will take to put the pieces back together."
[+] [-] DEinspanjer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisguyyy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxbrown|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsloth|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmaunder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fsloth|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] michaelochurch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IvyMike|11 years ago|reply
I'm in 23andme, and I get messages saying "someone who is your 4th/5th/6th cousin wants to connect" all the time. I figure if I was given a bit of DNA from a crime scene, by cross-referencing all of the 4th,5th, and 6th cousins, the number of potential people matching that DNA has got to be tiny.
Science fiction dystopias used to hypothesize a complete DNA database but I'm pretty sure even the spotty coverage we have now is pretty powerful.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_DNA_database
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_DNA_Index_System
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/fam...
http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/FamilialSearchPolicyFin...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3253037/
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
http://hstlj.org/articles/concerns-associated-with-expanding...
[+] [-] mendort|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewtbham|11 years ago|reply
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-not-so-perfect-match/
[+] [-] final|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a8da6b0c91d|11 years ago|reply
I have always assumed that the airport scanners are also collecting biometrics on everyone for video identification purposes and for that reason I try to avoid them.
[+] [-] kbenson|11 years ago|reply
Of course, the other way to interpret this is that his parents weren't really okay with the status quo, at least one of them either hadn't put enough thought into what happened, didn't know the whole story, or was entirely in the dark. The author may feel that it would be better to not know that information, but that information is truth, and represents who the people involved really are or were. I have little patience for being asked to help support others delusion.
Edit: s/rather now know/rather not know/
[+] [-] the_af|11 years ago|reply
> When George figured out his dad had conceived this child before getting married — that the child was not the result of adultery — he was excited. [...] His mother and sister could not handle the information, and his father went against their wishes, dedicating himself to reconnecting with his estranged son.
[+] [-] andreasvc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
They did. According to the editor, they don't anymore: "[Note: 23 and Me has since switched to an opt out system, where users will automatically be enrolled in the close relatives finder program.]"
[+] [-] credo|11 years ago|reply
We don't know the circumstances under which the father and his then-girlfriend had given up their son for adoption. However, that seems to have happened decades ago.
I'm not sure why no one is now talking to the dad for something that happened decades ago.
[+] [-] maxerickson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soperj|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frandroid|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacalata|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abvdasker|11 years ago|reply
It's this kind of careless disclosure of sensitive information that makes more than a few of the non-consumer-facing organizations (not to mention the FDA) a bit wary of companies like 23andMe.
I haven't used 23andMe so I can't speak to how well their ordering system addresses this issue beyond what the article states. Regardless, customers ordering these kinds of panels should be well informed as to what they're getting into.
EDIT: I did mean "wary" not "weary"
[+] [-] blendo|11 years ago|reply
Although I'm a bit surprised that to remove DNA info, you need to close your entire account, at which point they will "remove all Genetic Information within your account (or profile) within thirty (30) days of our receipt of your request".
Or maybe not: "Our contracted genotyping laboratory may also retain your Genetic Information as required by local law and we may retain backup copies for a limited period of time pursuant to our data protection policies."
[+] [-] sliverstorm|11 years ago|reply
It is "wary". Please. Please.
[+] [-] andrewtbham|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w0rd-driven|11 years ago|reply
I hope none of this feels like a personal attack. At the end of the day you're still entitled to your decision and opinion. I just know how I would feel or act. The feelings of only one person matter in this instance and it wouldn't be me, if I were in your shoes.
[+] [-] TrainedMonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] discardorama|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidkclark|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThrustVectoring|11 years ago|reply
This is also a very good argument for honesty - it's very hard to figure out when and how you'll get called out on lies.
[+] [-] s-phi-nl|11 years ago|reply
"We can't be sure, but we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and its hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex."
[+] [-] deciplex|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d357r0y3r|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psykovsky|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geuis|11 years ago|reply
I have half my dad's DNA and half my mom's, so does my sister. So therefore wouldn't we both share 50% of our DNA? If we were brothers it would be closer to 100%. So a half sibling should be the same as a sister in this aspect. I have a half brother too, so we both got 50% of our DNA from our mother. So we are 50% similar, not 25%.
Is my math wrong?
[+] [-] lotharbot|11 years ago|reply
With a full sibling of the opposite sex, you share about 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes (half of the 23 each of you got from mom will be the same) and 11.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22; you know the 23rd is different), for a total of 22.5 out of 46 which is 49%.
If you're both the same sex, you share on average 11.5 of your mom's chromosomes and 12.0 of your dad's chromosomes (11 of 22, and you know the 23rd is the same), which makes you around 51% similar.
[+] [-] J_Darnley|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fizixer|11 years ago|reply
Slightly off topic, but no wonder it's also difficult to make people realize the reality about religion(s). The same 'ignorance is bliss' head-in-the-sand mentality is working behind the scenes many times.
[+] [-] bthomas|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nhoven|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analyst74|11 years ago|reply
Sometimes I wonder, did forgetting/hiding of the hard truth caused the inability to handle them? Or because of?