Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Guthrie Cards - Australia's DNA Database

Posted by michael on from the drop-in-the-bucket dept.

bobo12345 writes "There was an interesting show (transcript here) on ABC TV's (Australia) Catalyst on Guthrie Cards - paper filter cards containing blood spots from almost every Australian born since 1970. These samples are routinely taken and stored in hospitals to screen for diseases like Cystic Fibrosis. Australian police have accessed the DNA database without consent in the past, successfully prosecuting an unpleasant incest case. This led to the destroying of all Guthrie Cards by the hospital whose original cards were obtained under a search warrant. Makes you wonder where your genetic material is stored, and which authorities have access. No alien DNA has been discovered on the Guthrie Cards (yet)."

7 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. Curious... by spumoni_fettuccini · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many other hospitals [in differant nations]have this practice and if the Red Cross keeps a sample, along with all of your personal information they aquire when one donates blood. It would seem to be a really easy thing to accomplish.

    --
    -- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
  2. Unpleasant...incest case...? by cbiffle · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Australian police have accessed the DNA database
    > without consent in the past, successfully prosecuting an
    > unpleasant incest case.

    Oh! Well then. As long as they're not prosecuting PLEASANT INCEST CASES.

    C'mon, 'unpleasant incest case' is like 'disposable condom' -- it's redundant, and it makes you shudder thinking about the alternatives.

    1. Re:Unpleasant...incest case...? by slittle · · Score: 2, Informative
      As long as they're not prosecuting PLEASANT INCEST CASES
      It probably has something to do with this:
      Detective Sergent Gary Fraser: This case is the worst case that I have been involved in - involving incestuous behaviour - very extremely tragic where the father targeted his biological daughters and there's actually been children fathered by the biological father.
      Which kind of elevates it from "eh, freaks" status to "CASTRATE THE BASTARD" (and that's just the Detective's use of "Double Plus Ungood" grammar, let alone the 'father').
      'disposable condom'
      IIRC, they used to be reusable. And also really thick... I guess back then the only 'suitable' material was plain old rubber..?
      --
      Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
  3. Alright I'll bite. by Kedyn's+Crow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a truly bad and evil thing that crimes are being solved, wouldn't want that to happen anywhere else.

    I still don't understand why some people think that a crime committed by one individual against another is the worst thing that can happen. When the government abuses the people it is supposed to protect the results can literally be a million times worse. Think about how much worse things would have been if Hitler had access to this kind of information.

    You don't own your DNA, you are just borrowing it from the human race.

    Sure, and you don't "own" your fingerprints either. But their is a difference between the police collecting fingerprints for a particular investigation and the government mandating that everyone be fingerprinted.

    --
    "The moment "pride" is lost, "freedom" is also lost." - Ramza.
    1. Re:Alright I'll bite. by henrygb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is a difference between the police collecting fingerprints for a particular investigation and the government mandating that everyone be fingerprinted.

      Yes, but neither is as bad as the authorities keeping a partial set of fingerprints or DNA from past investigations.

      The real issue is that of false positive matches without true positive matches. This is low if the authorities do not keep information over time - since they will only test a small number of suspects each time. It is also relatively low if they have a complete database of the population - they will get false positives, but since they will probably also get the true positive, any match will not be used as conclusive proof. But with a large partial database (as happens now) the chance of a single positive being found, and that positive being false, becomes much higher.

  4. Re:Who was Guthrie? by mikecheng · · Score: 3, Informative

    Guthrie did work with work into PKU (PKU=Phenylketonuria. An inherited human metabolic disease that is characterized by inability to oxidize a metabolic product of phenylalanine.) and related diseases.

    --
    Cool, but useless.
  5. Re:Who was Guthrie? by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Funny
    > For my edification, who was the Guthrie after which the cards were named? When I first saw the article I thought "Why the hell would Woody be involved in something like that?"

    Well, we got there and we had a warrant, and we figured one big pile of DNA samples on Guthrie cards was better than 5000 little piles of DNA samples at each hospital, so rather than send ours down, we decided we'd bring everybode else's up. That's what we did.

    Drove back to the police station, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from ABC's Catalyst show. He said "Officer, we found your name on a box containing half a ton of Guthrie cards and we just wanted to know if you had any information about it!"

    You can get anything you want from the hospital's DNA.
    You can get anything you want from the hospital's DNA.
    Walk right in, they're around the back,
    Underneath the floor by the server rack,
    You can get anything you want from the hospital's DNA...