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Routine DNA Tests For Newborns Mean Looming Privacy Problems
pogopop77 writes "CNN has an interesting story about how newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it's often done without the parents' consent. However, many states store that DNA information indefinitely, and even make it available to researchers with little or no privacy safeguards. Sometimes even the names are attached! Here is information on state-by-state policies (PDF) of the handling of the DNA information."
http://www.genome.gov/10002328
What's the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)?
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, also referred to as GINA, is a new federal law that protects Americans from being treated unfairly because of differences in their DNA that may affect their health. The new law prevents discrimination from health insurers and employers. The President signed the act into federal law on May 21, 2008. The parts of the law relating to health insurers will take effect by May 2009, and those relating to employers will take effect by November 2009.
Their logo even has "GATTACA" in it.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
To clarify, you want each of your markers to carry maximum information. SNPs are the easiest/cheapest markers to genotype, and represent positions in the genome where some chromosomes in the population have one nucleotide (e.g. G, one of the alleles) and others have a different nucleotide (e.g. T, the other allele). (I say chromosomes instead of people, since people are diploid and will have 2 copies of each chromosome. Diploid genotypes are then GG, GT, or TT for a G/T SNP). To maximize information, you want to choose a SNP where the probability of these genotypes is relatively even--maximized if the proportion of G's and T's in the population are equal, leading to 25% GG, 50% GT, and 25% TT.
While the parent is correct that 24 SNPs is sufficient in a given population, in practice it's probably hard to choose 24 SNPs that cover ALL populations in the world well (since a SNP with a high minor allele frequency in, say, Europeans, may not have a high minor allele frequency in Asians, or Indians, or Australians...
General Welfare clause is a perfectly reasonable justification to the constitutionality of federally run healthcare.
Q.