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Original Articles

Direct-to-consumer health genetic testing services: What commercial strategies for which socio-ethical issues?

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Pages 75-87 | Received 14 Sep 2011, Accepted 18 Feb 2013, Published online: 17 Dec 2014
 

Abstract

Online availability of direct-to-consumer health genetic testing services for various diseases and behavioural traits appears to have created a business dynamic since its beginning around the turn of the millennium. What are the marketing strategies implemented by the companies commercialising these tests and the social expectations they feed on? From a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the websites offering such tests for health, it appears that these companies have based their expansion on a triple-branch market: ‘healthism’, contemporary claims revolving around the individuation of ‘biopolitics’, and biosocial bonding. Each of these three marketing strategies raises a number of socio-ethical issues that require careful consideration in the face of an unprecedented surge of the genetic testing market.

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