I saw a creepy commercial on tv. It was a Utah based company called huntsman or something like it. They were saying that you needed to contact them right away and pay to have your DNA checked for cancer. It went on to say if you did not act immediately you could die of cancer needlessly.

I have not heard such high pressure sales tactic since the 1950s or 1960s.

How far will the cult go to amass everyone's dna. Shudder so creepily.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2015 04:26PM by wondering.

What? have your...what checked for cancer?
I have seen many ads for the Huntsman Cancer Facility in UT which is a huge facility. None of them are fear based.

The commercial said you had to get your DNA checked sorry iPad keeps changing my typing.

wondering Wrote:
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> The commercial said you had to get your DNA
> checked sorry iPad keeps changing my typing.

OK.. I got it now. I knew it had to be an auto correct ... ! :-)
I have not seen any ad about having DNA checked for cancer in my area. The ads I have seen for this cancer facility (which is really beautiful) have been individuals showing how they are accepted and how well they did there.

My husband had a very rare cancer and if we were living in UT he would have wanted to go there as it's a research facility connected to the Univ. of Utah and part of the Utah health system.

Wow, scare tactics. So mormon.

Perhaps someone should point out to this company that unless the cells they pull from you to sample your DNA from are cancerous, they won't find anything at all...?

In other words, if they pull cheek cells (which is typical) to test your DNA, and you have liver cancer, it won't show up. 'Cause, see, only the liver cells have mutated to be cancerous, not the cheek cells.

This could rise to criminal if they tell somebody, "Hey, no worries, you're cancer free!" when that person actually has a cancer their test doesn't detect, and they fail to seek treatment because of it.

There are some types of "blood" cancers that can be detected with a generic blood sample DNA analysis, if you're lucky (typically only some blood cells have the mutations, and no tester is going to yank the DNA from every cell in a sample, so it's not completely reliable).
But if they're asking for a cheek swab, the only cancers they'll be able to detect are cheek cancers.

And there are billboards.

but,but, I thought DNA science was still too unreliable. I mean, if you can't tell what Lehi/Jewish DNA would look like, why trust your life to such an arcane science?

As if we don't have enough to stress over and worry about.

Given the recent news reports of how surprisingly unreliable prenatal genetic screening can be, this sort of thing may at first seem like a great idea.... then waste lots of money & tears (iatrogenic anxiety).

frogdogs Wrote:
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> Given the recent news reports of how surprisingly
> unreliable prenatal genetic screening can be, this
> sort of thing may at first seem like a great
> idea.... then waste lots of money & tears
> (iatrogenic anxiety).

Amen to that. That one hits close to home.
My wife (43) and I (55) are expecting. Big surprise, let me tell you. Given her age, and the higher incidence of genetic problems at that age, I dove into research on prenatal genetic screening. I was *stunned* at how unreliable it is. We're doing it all anyway, understanding the shortcomings, because it's better than nothing (all clear so far, by the way, to the limits of what can be known). Essentially, five different kinds of tests, including genetic testing of amniotic fluid, can at best give us something like a 75% chance of an "actual positive," with a 25% chance of either a "false positive" or "false negative."