It sounds really great, doesn’t it? There’s such an easy way to learn about your long lost great grandfather who was a fisherman in Newfoundland It’s easy to do – just swab the inside of your cheek and mail the test tube to a genetics testing company like Ancestry.com or 23AndMe. What could be simpler?
The concept is pretty simple – your DNA is worth billions. And billions. The advertisement for these companies makes us harken back to our Italian heritage or yearn to trace our roots back to Africa.
The plain truth is a little less palatable – these companies are a priceless collection of DNA and its associated metadata, and brace yourself – in the case of Ancestry.com, an investment firm owns your DNA. We wrote about it in 2023; read it here.
So Many Companies
Ancestry.com is the most well-known company, followed by 23andMe (more on them later in this article), but several of these genealogy companies exist:
- MyHeritage DNA: a private company headquartered in Israel and founded by Gilad Japhet in 2003
- FamilyTreeDNA: owned by private company Gene Ltd.
- Living DNA: owned by UUK-based DNA Worldwide Group
- TellmeGen: a privately owned company based in Spain.
- DNAfit: acquired by global genomics company Synomics, part of Morningside Venture Group.
- Helix: privately held and partnered with biotech company Illumina and other companies. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is on Illumina’s board.
- Veritas Genetics: privately held and focused on whole genome sequencing and detailed genetic testing services.
Many Do Not Consent
There are lots of reasons why many people have chosen not to send a swab into one of these companies, but most of the population doesn’t see the potential harms.
First up is the fact that despite which company you choose, a Chinese company called BGI does the overwhelming majority of all the sequencing of US genes. This means that China has the genomic sequence of nearly every American who has been genotyped. Is China developing bioweapons aimed at Caucasians? Some say they are, and if so, it couldn’t be any easier for them.
Second, let’s face it, there are evil overlords on the planet who have a goal of creating tailored bioweapons. This is clear – just look at this article below from nearly three decades ago!
More recently, one of Vladimir Putin’s main motivations for the invasion of Ukraine was that the US was “filling Ukraine with biolabs, which were very possibly used to study methods for destroying the Russian people at the genetic level.”
Third, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said recently that people should reconsider using popular at-home ancestry DNA test kits because scientific advancements are making biological weapons more tailorable. “Biological weapons that can target specific groups or individuals vulnerable to pathogens or other diseases are a growing national security concern,” he said.
There’s even a 2012 article from The Atlantic stating that the US is secretly collecting the DNA of world leaders. While the government is protecting some DNA (e.g. Barack Obama), are they creating personalized bioweapons to take down certain world leaders? While this sounds like the plot of a Mission Impossible movie, it’s not. It’s real. Very real.
After all, remember that Ashkenazi Jews and East Asian people were much less susceptible to Covid. And remember when 23andMe was hacked and the hackers were specifically looking for Ashkenazi Jew and Chinese DNA?
23andMe, From Riches to Rags
Actually, 23andMe has had their share of issues lately. About a year ago, the company was hacked in December 2023. The hackers stole 7 million DNA profiles.
But the company hasn’t always had such bad luck. In fact, it started as a Cinderella story – a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company to offer insights into ancestry and health. Anne Wojcicki co-founded the company with two other ladies in 2006. Prior to that, Wojcicki worked as an investor in biotech and health, and she was married to Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google.
23andMe grew rapidly under Wojcicki’s leadership; she raised gobs of cash, and in 2015 had the hallmark moment of obtaining FDA approval for its genetic test for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations associated with breast cancer. (It’s interesting to note that Askenazi Jews are much more susceptible to the BRCA mutations.)
Things went downhill after that. She and Brin divorced the same year, in 2015. 23andMe went public in 2021, part of the special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) bandwagon that lets shell companies go public quickly when investors are chomping at the bit. Basically, the SPAC allowed 23andMe to become a publicly traded company without going through a traditional initial public offering (IPO). The stock shot up in value and the company was briefly worth $6 billion. Wojcicki became a billionaire overnight because she owned 49% of the company, but ever since the company struggled to implement a sustainable business model. The company never made a profit.
2024 was a particularly rough year. Anne’s sister Susan, the CEO of YouTube, died in August at the age of 56. In September, Anne wanted to take 23AndMe private, but her board disagreed, with ALL SEVEN resigning en masse. There have been many arguments in many companies over whether to stay private or public, but it is a rarity that an entire board resigns.
Was this about something more?
Things got worse as 23andMe was delisted in 2023 from the NASDAQ stock exchange for failure to maintain the required minimum $1 per share stock price. The company experienced declining revenues, made worse by the hacker incident. 23andMe began laying off hundreds of workers – 40% of its workforce, actually, in an attempt to save $35 million. The company discontinued ongoing clinical trials and looked for new ways to sell current products.
Rumors were that Wojcicki was burning through cash so quickly that she might run out in early 2025. Since October 2024, bankruptcy rumors have circulated.
This begs the question: what will happen if 23andMe goes bankrupt? Will your DNA be scattered to the winds? Comparatively, Ancestry.com holds 20+ billion records to date. As we noted in our earlier article as well, Ancestry assures they will never sell your DNA but their fine print says otherwise: “reserves the right to use genetic information for ‘scientific’ research.
23AndMe is in much more dire straits than Ancestry. Does 23AndMe have the same vague, broad provision in its fine print? If so, who will be doing the “scientific” research? Will it be a reputable lab or will it be the CCP or someone in Ukraine?
Anyone who spit into a 23AndMe test tube should be very concerned about what that answer will be.
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Fed Up Texas Chick is a contributing writer for The Tenpenny Report. She’s a rocket scientist turned writer, having worked in the space program for many years. She is a seasoned medical writer and researcher who is fighting for medical freedom for all of us through her work.