How Biotech Aids and Abets the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement
It is a modern marvel that we can receive reports on our ancestry with some cash and some spit: 23&Me and Ancestry.com lead the charge in these efforts. Using variable regions of our DNA, these companies have optimized software to estimate what populations we might have descended from. Some companies also offer information on various traits or characteristics including quirky features such as whether we have an increased risk of tasting cilantro as soap.
There are many other companies that perform DNA testing and these fall into two different formats: some require users to send in their saliva samples so they can be processed. Others simply provide additional data when users provide their downloaded files from 23&Me or Ancestry. These include companies that claim to predict my preference for wine, whether my child will be good at soccer, my child’s height potential, and “what unique foods” are best for my genes.
The data supporting associations between these complex traits and variants in our genomes is often weak. Figuring out whether a variant in our DNA can account for a physical characteristic isn’t an easy task. Many of our traits aren’t simple: there are many genes at play and different variants can increase or decrease our risk of developing such characteristics. Identifying variants associated with such complex diseases require large studies that are carefully designed and replicated. Additionally, for many health and physical traits, there’s the all-important issue of the environment we’re exposed to, our diet, and other factors that aren’t encoded in our genes. To give a simple example, does the DNA test for soccer skills include important qualities such as being a team player?
But this hasn’t stopped the increasing number of small biotech companies that make outrageous claims about what our DNA can predict. These claims continue to grow to the point that there are now relationship compatibility tests based on DNA.
Consequently, it should be no surprise that the thin veneer of science that coats these tests is now being applied by anti-vaccine advocates. They claim that genetic tests can predict whether a child will have a reaction against vaccines, and this argument has taken ahold of many in their movement. There are entire Facebook groups dedicated to “genetic mutations” and “vaccine adverse reactions”, where parents attribute various health conditions in their children to the interaction between “toxins” in vaccines and genetic variants.
Studies have been conducted examining whether there are genetic variants in patients that have had vaccine adverse reactions, but the definition of “vaccine adverse reaction” isn’t what Twitter arguments and Facebook groups would have you believe. They are well described and defined reactions: rare cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, viscerotropic disease after yellow fever vaccinations, and the regular fever and rashes that many get after a vaccine. Interestingly, papers examining epileptic seizures after TdAP vaccinations found that children had a genetic basis for epilepsy and that the vaccination itself was not the cause for the epilepsy. And despite what parents in Facebook groups may believe, there aren’t any variants associated with vaccine adverse events after the MMR vaccine.
Most discussions surrounding genetic variants and vaccines fixate on a single gene: MTHFR or methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, an enzyme that plays an important role in the metabolism of folate. There are entire websites dedicated to MTHFR, where this enzyme is painted as holding the key to the mysteries behind many different conditions, including the amorphous “vaccine adverse events” and autism. I was able to find only one study that found genetic association with variants in MTHFR after a vaccination: a paper that looked at only 1442 variants in the genome in 69 patients who were given the smallpox vaccine, where “adverse event” was defined as a temperature greater than 38.3ºC, rash, or swollen lymph nodes. That’s it. The study has not been replicated, much less with modern vaccines.
Yet stories about genetic variants and vaccines continue to spread and the pseudoscience is taking hold. Articles warning parents about variants in MTHFR, which are present in nearly half of the population, and how these can “trigger” vaccine reactions leading to autoimmune disorders and other diseases, are spreading like wildfire.
Almost as quickly as those biotech companies are popping up.
Pseudoscience is pseudoscience. For too long we’ve let these biotech companies go unchecked and scam unknowing victims out of a few hundred dollars when scientists know that there isn’t a genetic test on this planet that can predict the emotional compatibility of two individuals. It’s almost as if the biotech industry has let the nonsense spread because it benefits their bottom line.
Do we in the biotech sector have any right to state that MTHFR testing is a scam and that vaccine reactions cannot be predicted, if we have done little to decry DNA soccer tests? We have no moral or intellectual right to deny one but not the other. The biotech sector should take a strong stance against these modern snake oils, and should take a more active role in educating the public in what their technologies can and cannot do. Placing this burden solely on the shoulders of academics who lack resources and time for such efforts seems irresponsible, as these individuals keep playing whack-a-mole in their efforts to educate the public against companies that keep popping up.
The public, particularly parents who are searching for answers, deserve to know the limitations of genetic testing and the risks of testing their children. Parents are particularly vulnerable and are willing to spend inordinate amounts of money to ensure their children’s safety and give them every affordable advantage, even if these gains or benefits are minuscule or unlikely. Parents of children with various health conditions are particularly susceptible to pseudoscience, as they seek any explanation for the challenges their families face. When science fails to offer an answer or if the answers are complex, they will grasp at the closest available explanation. The seemingly binary answers that genetic tests falsely offer through these companies seem like a godsend.
As biotech fails to self-regulate, genetic and medical societies and organizations should speak out against false claims and false marketing, demanding that the FDA or FTC take action in regulating direct-to-consumer genetic tests and analyses where applicable. Because at this rate, it’s only a matter of time before we see genetic tests to determine which detox regime users should adhere to. In the absence of such controls, the gains that have been made through biotech products will be forever tarnished.
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Disclosures at the time of the writing of this article: Layla holds a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Toronto, and is currently a student at Penn State studying Applied Bioinformatics. She has worked in the biotech sector for 10 years and is not employed, as she focuses on her continuing education. The opinions outlined in this piece are hers alone. She is currently one of the directors of the SciMoms project at scimoms.com which strives to frame the everyday concerns of parents within the proper definitions of risk and hazard. She also has a fictitious parody account on twitter called @geneticvariants where you can find information on important genetic variants associated with binge watching Netflix shows.
