[rhondalea]

I have not tried to build credibility for 23andMe. I didn't even start the discussion of 23andMe except to mention that I, personally, had genotyping through the company. You then had questions, so I tried to answer them. Somehow, that progression of answers turned into an accusation that I was "promoting 23andMe."

I will not argue the points you wish to make in the first few paragraphs of your post. I've followed 23andMe and its supporters and critics pretty closely since I joined, and as a factual matter, I disagree with your conclusions. Nonetheless, this is really not the place for such an argument.

However...

I like 23andMe, just as I like the Personal Genome Project. I'm committed to both. Neither one has anything to do with Joanne Weidhaas and why I am angry with her and why I will never again participate in any of her studies. I joined her study in good faith, and I felt she let everyone down. Others are free to feel differently, but no one is free to tell me that I must feel as they do. Nor is anyone free to tell me that I must keep my opinion of what she did to myself.

As for casting aspersions, she seems to have done a stellar job of that in misstating the facts about 23andMe, but I'm not entirely sure that's her fault. It may be the way the question was put to her, and frankly, I'm not sure why 23andMe was even mentioned if the subject is why she charged research participants to receive their DNA results. I talked about her in the context of my own displeasure with her actions, not in the context of comparing her work to that of 23andMe. The discussion of 23andMe came later--in passing--and neither has anything to do with the other, but the mention of it ballooned until it became the entire discussion. Very unfortunate.