SUNDAY TIMES -- May 24 -- Dr Tamara Brown, a Croatian geneticist, has been investigating what creates that initial “spark” between two people, and she believes that the answer lies in smell. Her company, GenePartner, charges clients $99 for a genetic match. “We don’t claim to provide the ideal partner based purely on DNA,” Brown says. She adds that people also need to match on a social level — to have similar life goals, ideals and education levels. GenePartner is not the first company to use DNA testing. ScientificMatch started in December last year, about the same time as GenePartner, offering DNA matching for a lifetime membership fee of $1,995. As the testing is unregulated, there are fears of serious risk to privacy, that customers’ DNA results might be sold to insurance companies, for instance. In the U.S., the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Gina), signed by President Bush last May, makes it illegal for employers and health insurers to use their employees’ or customers’ genetic information to discriminate against them. The states of California and New York have taken action against DTC companies, ruling that since genetic tests are medical tests, they can only be ordered by a medical doctor.
The full article was originally published at Times Online, but is no longer available.
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