One DNA test said he was likely to get Alzheimer’s, the other said he wasn’t
&gt; “It’s not about the issue being half-baked,” the doctor replied, “but what the heck do we do about it, once we know, other than create high anxiety?”<p>Loads. Are you seriously telling me that you can&#x27;t think of <i>anything</i> useful to do with this knowledge? (What about if he wants to have kids?)<p>&gt; The doctor referred Mr. Fender to a geneticist, but it turned out he did not see patients under 50 who were not symptomatic and had no family history of the disease.<p>&gt; Mr. Fender then tracked down Jill Goldman, a genetic counselor specializing in dementia at the Taub Institute at Columbia University Medical Center, who described a multistep process of counseling and confirmatory testing that’s been the standard of care for 25 years. She typically serves people at high risk of inheriting a disease, and insurance usually covers both the consultations and the tests. But it was unlikely to cover the costs in the absence of family history. “It was like a chicken-and-egg thing,” Mr. Fender observes. “I needed a medical test to prove to them that it was real, but I couldn’t get a medical test until I could prove to them that it was real.”<p>&gt; Meanwhile, he happened to see a holiday special — $69 — for Ancestry’s genetic risk test.<p>There are problems here, but they&#x27;re not with 23andMe or Ancestry.com, I don&#x27;t think.