A commenter at Gene Sherpas writes:

It seems to me that the service Pathway offers is closely modeled on 23andMe’s products, so why do you consider them to be so much more responsible? On the surface, I can’t see much difference in how the two services work? And Pathway seems to have a more invasive privacy policy?

Short answer: pick your battles

Long answer: 23andMe is anti-medicine —lies. Navigenics is “integrative medicine” —noise. Both companies have had many years and many executive teams to demonstrate any motive otherwise. They have not.

But readers are absolutely correct. Pathway tries similar hey-bro-just-kidding garbage in their Terms of Service and in their product design. I know.

Pathway Genomics and the Services do not provide medical advice or diagnosis or treatment recommendations for diseases or other health conditions.

For the obtuse: My agenda is that “business problems” of 23andMe and Navigenics are correctly attributed to dishonesty and not “the market” or “needz more bizdev to doctors.” I prefer to believe that people care about their work and want to make it better for the greater good.

That said, of Silicon Valley genomics, only Counysl seems to have any inkling that its work is critical human medicine and not a mere toy with “scalable economics” in a “fundable market.”

“Oh but Navigenics is Serious!” Boring toys are still toys.

Aside: If —hypothetically— you were to solicit a genetic test in my medical office that was like 23andMe —”only better!” … keep it clean. I am watching.