“I mentioned to a co-worker that I just found out I had the breast cancer gene,” a woman told me a few years ago.

“The next thing I knew, everyone in the office was asking me, ‘How are you?’ When the director of our unit retired, everyone had assumed that I’d be chosen to replace him, but instead, I was passed over. I wasn’t fired, but I wasn’t promoted, either.”

She assumed that the company worried that there was a risk she might get cancer and be unable to work. Alas, as she suggests, subtle and not-so-subtle genetic discrimination exists, especially for genes associated with Alzheimer’s, cancer and other serious conditions, and privacy is therefore crucial.

I have been thinking about this woman as I read about 23andMe’s bankruptcy, and the fact that millions of people’s DNA is now for sale. This bankruptcy highlights several critical problems and the need for much stronger regulations concerning genetic information.

The company’s history has been rife with difficulties that, for years, it persuaded policy makers and millions of customers to overlook. Those issues stem from the company’s problematic two-fold business model.

23andMe planned to reap profit by selling millions of people’s DNA to biotech companies and others for tens of millions of dollars each. It has sold copies of its dataset to around 30, including

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