Criticism+of+the+Proove+Genetic+Test

The Proove website ([|https://www.proove.com/#/]) is designed to suggest that hope is finally out there for those who suffer from chronic pain. Proove asserts that it is using “precision medicine” to improve healthcare. The precision at issue is the personal genomic profiles of its clients. According to Proove, these profiles contain information about how chronic pain //for specific individuals// should be treated.

After purchasing a Proove Genetic Test, the customer receives a page similar to this one:



Note the heading “Clinical Recommendations.” Based on the test, doctors can target the choice and dosage of opioid drugs to their patients. For fibromyalgia sufferers, this test comes as the promise of Nirvana.

Proove, however, has come under attack from several quarters.

===The Stat News website ([]) accuses Proove and other testing companies of feeding of the fears people have these days of drug dependency resulting from treatment. Proove, it claims, is nothing other than a money-making scam:===

“Proove has grown rapidly by tapping into the public angst over surging opioid addiction. It is one of many companies touting personalized DNA-based tests backed by little or no credible scientific data showing their reliability. That’s because a regulatory loophole has left huge swaths of the multibillion-dollar genetic testing industry largely free of government oversight. A STAT investigation found that Proove employees stationed in physicians’ offices pushed unnecessary tests on patients — a practice called “coercion” by one former manager — and they sometimes completed research evaluation forms on behalf of doctors, rating the tests as highly effective when they weren’t. In fact, Proove tests of DNA captured by swabbing inside a patient’s cheek were so unreliable that many physicians disregarded the results. There was scant evidence, said the company’s former chief scientist, that the tests improved patient outcomes.”

===The Genetic Literacy Site ([]), quoting the STAT report, states that Proove lacks real scientific basis:===

When the federal government reversed course last month, deciding [|not to regulate many genetic tests] , one big winner was [|Proove Biosciences], a Southern California company that markets an unproven “opioid risk” test. Proove claims its [|test]  can predict, with 93 percent accuracy, which patients will become addicted to or misuse prescribed opioid pain pills….But STAT has found that the opioid risk test lacks a firm scientific basis. Genetics and addiction experts — including one of Proove’s medical advisers — said genetic testing isn’t able to predict addiction, and questioned the evidence used to back up the company’s accuracy claim. Erroneous results could misinform doctors and lead them to unnecessarily refuse opioids to patients suffering severe pain, the experts warned. . . . Proove is one of an expanding number of players in the multibillion-dollar [|genetic testing market]  that promote tests unsupported by hard data to doctors and consumers — and because of a regulatory loophole, it’s all legal. These tests have proliferated with the emergence of personalized medicine and its promise to tailor treatments to patients, and the rapid drop in the price of sequencing genes….

Materials and Methods Prevalence of Fibromyalgia TRPV Genes Family Portrait Imaging the TRPV1 Protein Channel <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Broader Impact - Pharmacogenetics and Fibromyalgia <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Discussion - The Genetic Approach to Fibromyalgia <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Works Cited