[ExI] 23andme again

[James Clement]

On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 9:03 PM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:


FYE.

Prince William's DNA
June 19, 2013

The UK's *Times *ran a splashy
headline<http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3790940.ece>
 late last week claiming that Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and husband
to Kate Middleton, is part Indian, based on DNA tests of the royal's
distant relatives.

The article says that saliva tests of two of the prince's third cousins
established a direct lineage, via mtDNA, to a woman named Eliza Kewark, an
ancestor of the late Princess Diana. Kewark lived in western India, but was
said to be Armenian.

The analysis, conducted by University of Edinburgh and BritainsDNA
geneticist Jim Wilson, found that Eliza's "descendants had an incredibly
rare type" of mtDNA that has so far only been recorded in a few Indian and
Nepalese individuals.

According to The *Times*, the royal family is not likely to be plunged into
any sort of scandal over the finding that the future king has small dollop
of Indian mtDNA.

"I always assumed that I was part-Armenian so I am delighted that I also
have an Indian background," says Princess Diana's maternal aunt, Mary Roach.

The PHG Foundation's Philippa
Brice<http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/14134/> is
not as carefree about the article, but not due to the "trivial" and
unsurprising finding that the Duke possesses DNA sequences from another
ethnic group.

"What is noteworthy is the ethics of publishing details of this genetic
analysis at all," Brice says, noting that "one of the major ethical
concerns about genetic information and privacy" is that individual
information can lead to the disclosures about family members.

The Duke's cousins are free to have genetic tests if they want, but
disclosing information about other, non-consenting individuals, is "highly
questionable," Brice says.

"Would this have been considered acceptable if the revelation were, say,
that he might have inherited genetic variants associated with disease
risk?" she asks.
In addition, newspaper has received criticism in journalism
circles<http://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2013/06/times-uk-turns-story-advertising>
 as it included a special offer from BritainsDNA for readers, which the
Knight Science Journalism Tracker calls "harmful to journalists'
credibility."
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