Home testing for COVID-19: lessons from direct to consumer genetics

Theodore E Wilson; Colin Halverson

doi:10.1007/s12687-020-00470-8

Home testing for COVID-19: lessons from direct to consumer genetics

J Community Genet. 2020 Oct;11(4):497-499. doi: 10.1007/s12687-020-00470-8. Epub 2020 Jun 16.

Authors

Theodore E Wilson¹, Colin Halverson^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine, 975 W. Walnut St., Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA. theowils@iu.edu.
² Center for Bioethics, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.

Abstract

On March 11th, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a worldwide pandemic. Publicly available testing has lagged, and tech entrepreneurs have quickly volunteered to fill this gap. Over the last two decades, genetic testing ordered outside of a clinic and without the involvement of a physician has been a way for the average individual to get genetic testing. In this commentary, we discuss the lessons learned from this parallel case from genetics and suggest regulatory caution in establishing direct-to-consumer COVID testing.