Worry over one’s DNA ancestry is an overreaction

People are reading too much into it. A DNA test can’t really tell you who you are or divine your future health

ethicists worried that the health insurance system would refuse coverage over genetic risk factors, and that might lead to employers firing people over their DNA. And so the US and many other countries adopted laws to prohibit genetic discrimination.

A small minority of people carry a real genetic time bomb, such as Huntington’s disease or mutations associated with a high risk of certain cancers. For most of us, our health is tied to multiple genes and environmental factors, such as exposure to pollution, stress and diet – and to some extent random chance.

Beyond forensics, DNA has revolutionised the understanding of evolution and where we as a species came from. But there are limits to what it can reveal about any given individual. Since Elizabeth Warren published her genetic profile, everyone is reading something different into the test results. Supporters say she has now proven that she is indeed part Native American, while her foes say the test proves the opposite, that she has too little Native American ancestry to qualify.

News stories have quoted several boasting about how accurate their tests are in finding minuscule contributions to people’s DNA. But they can’t answer whether Warren’s result means she can identify as Native American. That’s a line drawn by cultures, not by science. And so the bad news is that a DNA test can’t really tell you who you are or divine your future health. But the good news is that any hackers who stole your DNA wouldn’t learn much either.