Salinas, CA Genetic Testing For Cancer And Various Diseases To Become More Common Under FDA Ruling

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time has approved a direct-to-consumer genetic test for disease risk.  This is expected to cause an explosion of new players entering the market.  A California company called 23andMe is now able to sell a test that consumers can use to find out if they have a rare gene variant for Bloom syndrome, a disease which leads to stunted growth and cancer risk in children.  More broadly, however, the FDA has signaled that they will allow companies to create test kits for various diseases, and this is expected to result in a huge change in the way people prepare to grow old.