Genetic testing is also known as or called DNA testing. Genetic testing is the process whereby a blood, skin, hair, amniotic fluid or other tissue samples are taken to determine the bloodliness, a child’s parentage, biological relationship between individuals and barrage of other usefulness and purposes. Genetic testing is carried out by genetic testing companies like; LivingDNA, AncestryDNA, 23andme and others. The testing is now becoming popular in number of countries across the globe.
According to Genetics Home Reference, ” genetic testing is a type of medical test that identifies changes in chromosomes, genes, or proteins”. The test can be used to determine genetic disorder in an individual or how vulnerable an indudual is to contact hereditary or inherited diseases. It is also used to know vulnerable the individual is to develop a genetic disorder. As of now, there are more than 900 genetic testing for genetic diseases that are clinically available.

The test can be used for other purposes such as; revealing and determining a lot of physiological and biological details of an individual. This, which could be a risk for the DNA test owners because the test result at most times get to third parties, which the security of the test results may not be guaranteed.
As it was written in an article on Gizmodo.com which states “When you spit in a test tube in hopes of finding out about your ancestry or health or that perfect, genetically optimized bottle of wine, you’re giving companies access to some very intimate details about what makes you, you. Your genes don’t determine everything about who you are, but they do contain revealing information about your health, relationships, personality, and family history that, like a social security number, could be easily abused. Not only that—your genes reveal all of that information about other people you’re related to, too.” With this kind of occurrence —which is attached with high risk level— happening, there is definitely a need for regulating genetic testing and companies carrying out the test so as to eradicate or reduce the risks attached to it.

As good as the DNA testing may be, there are still some risks attached to it. This puts the testing and companies carrying out such test in dire need of regulations. The regulation is basically to reduce those risks or take them off permanently.
One of the major risks of DNA testing is getting an inaccurate test result. According to Linda Avey, co founder of 23andme, “consumers have received conflicting results from different companies”. This could be caused due to unqualified laboratory and laboratory personnel as well as lack of quality control processes. Then definitely to reduce the level of risks attached to Genetic or DNA testing and companies carying out such test, some regulations need to be made by the government agencies in charge.
One of the regulations or ways the test can be regulated is availability of “informed consent”. Informed consent is the process of enlightening people about the test procedures and having their consent as whether to carry out the test or not. It is therefore of utmost importance that an individual, who is interested in having genetic testing, has full understanding the procedures of the test, the gains, and the possible repercussions of the test result so as to guide such person in consenting to have the test. Likewise there is should be proper agreement between the companies and the individual carrying out the test on what the test result will be used for and how it will be safe guarded.
Another important regulation is proficiency testing for laboratories and laboratory personnel. It is important that a proficiency test is carried out on laboratories and laboratories personal to determine their qualifications and also to be sure of the plausibility of their test result they will be giving out to patient so as not to compound issues.
On another note as regards the necessary regulations for genetic testing, there must be procedures for quality control. This procedures will ascertain and screen the quality of genetic testing result. For this to be done, there are three important criteria that must be met. These are;
Analytical validity: This refers to how valid is the accuracy of the test as regards the detection of whether a genetic change or variant is present or absent. This will actually prove the accuracy of an assertion on the presence or absence of a genetic variant.
Clinical Validity: This refers to the analysed genetic variant is related to presence, absence, or risk of a particular disease. This will be done after genetic variant has been ascertained to be present in an individual to show the relatedness between the analysis and presence , absence of risk of genetic diseases.
Clinical utility: This basically refers to the possibility of the test in providing information about diagnosis, management, treatment or prevention of a disease that will be helpful to patients.

Regulations should also be made on who orders genetic testing. The test should be ordered by physicians and not anyhow person. The physicians should also be the one to prescribe drugs after a patient has be diagnosed of having a genetic disorder or genetic disease.
Furthermore, there must be screening of test kits and ASRs (analyte specific reagents) used for this testing. There are ASRs that are produced by companies alongside testing kits that can be used for genetic testing at home before it is taken to the laboratory. As part of the regulations for genetic testing, such ASRs and kits has to be screened and licensed by government agencies.
On the concluding note, as it is evident that this testing keeps growing bigger, and as it grows the risks attached to it are not also left out of this growth process. So if we actually want this testing to serve positively, then the above regulations and others will be germane to reducing the risks of genetic testing.