It also doesnt test nearly as extensively as an amnio. yes, trisomy 21 and only barely 18 and maybe 13? Anyway, it is all a personalmdecision for each and every one of us and we make decisions what we feel comfortable with. No one is either right or wrong in this case, its just personal opinion.
You are right, it is a personal decision, that's why I said I was not here to argue with you about whether it was right or wrong. However, in this particular case with MaterniT21, I believe, it is also important to consider how you arrive at making that decision, i.e. what information you use to help yourself. I read the article you referenced and, honestly, I did not see anything alarming about the test in it, except that it implies the possible rise in potential ethical concerns with regards to future of Down syndrome children.
First of all, the problem with company's falsifying the data is in the past 2009 research and has nothing to do with the current test. Moreover, given that past problem, they would not risk having it again, thus making this test free of such issue and therefore more reliable. Second of all, another company Verinata Health, is getting ready to introduce a similar test in 2012, which is based on their research that dates back to 2008. So, this is another independent company doing the same research, which doesn't make it an isolated event by Sequenom, but rather may be indicative of a new trend in genetic testing which will be the standard tomorrow. Thirdly, because of a very low false-positive rate of the test (0.2% vs. existing screening test rate of 5%), women who test negative on MaterniT21 may comfortably skip the invasive procedure. If they test positive, they can still undergo it, but they will have one extra non-invasive step in between, which gives them another chance to skip amnio or CVS. Finally, the reason FDA has not approved this test yet, is not because of the test itself, but because they have not regulated tests offered by a single lab in general, but they said they might start doing so from now on.
Taking a sample of a brand new drug that was just marketed may cause more damage than the risk-free blood test, but patients do it all the time when their doctor offers them a free sample of a new drug that the pharmaceutical company is promoting. They don't know that most of the time the company has only researched the drug for 6-8 weeks on a limited number of patients prior to publishing their data. According to the FDA rules, you only need two positive studies to be able to publish the data, and it doesn't matter if you had 5 or more negative studies, it will still get published and approved, but the negative studies will not even be mentioned. At least with MaterniT21 they had a large sample size and their results were confirmed by the amnio which is considered the best diagnostic test today.