Below find my ever-growing annotated collection of online responses to the FDA’s recent shot across the bow of 23andMe, the consumer genetics company. Until today, I was adding these links to the bottom of my own first reaction to the FDA’s stern letter. (I published my broader, more studied take, How 23andMe Broke the Rules: The F.D.A.…
Here’s a particularly sharp, context-rich post on that question from from Margaret Curnutte, currently of Baylor University. It seems one of the more deeply informed takes on this fracas. A couple of the key points: On what 23andMe was offering: From its inception, [23andMe] has treaded a fine line between claiming to provide something that…
I’ve a piece up at The New Yorker on 23andMe’s clash with the FDA: Here’s the opening: The United States Food and Drug Administration is not known for its prose. So the warning letter that it sent to 23andMe, the direct-to-consumer genetic-testing company, on November 22nd, was a surprise in more ways than one. “It reads like…
Note: If you’re here for the annotated links to other perspectives on the 23andMe/FDA dust-up, you should go instead to I Got Your 23andMe – FDA Food Fight Links Right Here, to which I’ve moved my ongoing curation on the subject. Below, however, you’ll still find first take on this dust-up, written Nov 25. My longer piece at…
One of my favorite things this week: John Hawks on the magnificent open-science real-time-science excavation of a newly discovered human fossil dig going on right now in South Africa. Do read the whole thing; what they’re doing there is radical, disruptive, inspiring, and wonderful: In my last post (“In the hot seat”), I explained how…
I find this clip amazing and unsettling. I’ve not read David and Goliath, the book they discuss here. But according to reviews and Gladwell’s own description, it follows the template of his prior books, which mine social science and psychology to create seemingly counterintuitive just-so stories about how people behave and society works. There’s often…
As it turned out, Lou and I didnt live far from each other in New York, and after the festival Lou suggested getting together. I think he liked it when I said, “Yes! Absolutely! Im on tour, but when I get back – lets see, about four months from now – lets definitely get together.”…
A friend sent me a nice post by a fellow named Pat Lackey, at the wonderfully named Pirates site “Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke”. Lackey lightly laments baseball’s failure to award any Pirates a Gold Glove award. Then he says why he thinks the award is silly and the Pirates’ defense great: Because…