Tag Archives: Consumer-directed testing

April 2019—For years, laboratories have chafed against testing being, literally and figuratively, an out-of-sight, out-of-mind transaction. Now a new, highly visible era in genetics may be pushing testing the other way, into the hands of consumers who value entertainment as well as medical information. Anyone who wants to write a book about this shift has a ready-made title: From Basement to Big Top. It’s not that clinical testing is becoming an actual circus. But ever since the first consumer genetic tests entered the market in 2007—in a nonphysician-ordered, SNP array technology way—labs, physicians, and regulatory agencies have had plenty to juggle.