When the federal government reversed course last month, deciding not to regulate many genetic tests, one big winner was Proove Biosciences, a Southern California company that markets an unproven “opioid risk” test.
Proove claims its test can predict, with 93 percent accuracy, which patients will become addicted to or misuse prescribed opioid pain pills….But STAT has found that the opioid risk test lacks a firm scientific basis.
Genetics and addiction experts — including one of Proove’s medical advisers — said genetic testing isn’t able to predict addiction, and questioned the evidence used to back up the company’s accuracy claim. Erroneous results could misinform doctors and lead them to unnecessarily refuse opioids to patients suffering severe pain, the experts warned.
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Proove is one of an expanding number of players in the multibillion-dollar genetic testing market that promote tests unsupported by hard data to doctors and consumers — and because of a regulatory loophole, it’s all legal. These tests have proliferated with the emergence of personalized medicine and its promise to tailor treatments to patients, and the rapid drop in the price of sequencing genes….
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Called ‘hogwash,’ a gene test for addiction risk exploits opioid fears
