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... that ordinary people aren't experts.

Ok, that's trite, but still it's the heart of the matter when "ordinary people" (read patients) decide to do their own testing. You can test at home for all sorts of genetic things these days - inclination towards specific types of cancer, bipolar disorder, and more. The problem, as the "experts" like to put it, is that by finding this information out on your own you might draw the wrong conclusion... or the right conclusion.

''People are always rushing to the market on the basis of one or two studies,'' said Dr. Muin Khoury, director of the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ''We have very little evidence that telling people their genetic information is going to make any difference.''

Is that so? Is ignorance bliss? I don't really understand it (perhaps because I'm not an expert) but if I were bipolar wouldn't it be a good thing to know? If I were destined for a fatal cancer wouldn't it be better to be aware before it developed?

Some people are taking action on this information, and it's fascinating how when a woman decides to have a double mastectomy based on information her doctor gave her - that's all well and good. If someone were to walk into a doctor's office and demand a double mastectomy based on a test, where she sent her own samples to the lab and received the results herself, she'd be called a psycho.

There's a new trend, actually, where doctors have been dumping patients who do too much research on their own, and try and influence their own health decisions. The cornucopia of information available to the ordinary web-user is enormous, and unlike any time in the past, patients are able to share their information directly with the entire world: "This happened to me, learn from it."

Patients taking Psynomics' bipolar test may feel branded by a positive result, even if they are not ultimately diagnosed with the disorder, said Hank Greely, a professor of law and genetics with the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. Or they may feel false hope from a negative result, despite the company's disclaimers.

But how is this different from the same results given to them by their doctor? Well for one, there's less indirection. Giving the patient the direct results means there's no chance for the doctor to screw up their records and misdiagnose or misread the results. But what else? Oh yeah, there is the second big difference - cost.

The medical industry will circle the wagons, even as the pharmaceutical industry tries to end-run by marketing stuff directly to the consumer ("ask your Doctor if blahblahblah is right for you..."). Testing is a new tweak on giving ordinary people access to information about themselves that they never could have obtained without paying for at least two office visits (one to schedule the test, one to get the results). Doctors don't like this. I'm pretty sure the tiebreaker will come down from how insurance companies decide to weigh in.

Until then, most of us are probably better off getting these tests but keeping the results to ourselves, and keeping a watchful eye on our doctors.