Newborns' Blood Used To Build Secret DNA Database

Kanel notes a summary up at New Scientist of an investigation by a Texas newspaper revealing that Texas health officials had secretly transferred hundreds of newborn babies' blood samples to the federal government to build a DNA database. Here's the (long and detailed) article in the Texas Tribune. From New Scientist: "The Texas Department of State Health Services routinely collected blood samples from newborns to screen for a variety of health conditions, before throwing the samples out. But beginning in 2002, the DSHS contracted Texas A&M University to store blood samples for potential use in medical research. These accumulated at rate of 800,000 per year. The DSHS did not obtain permission from parents, who sued the DSHS, which settled in November 2009. Now the Tribune reveals that wasn't the end of the matter. As it turns out, between 2003 and 2007, the DSHS also gave 800 anonymized blood samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. This came to light after repeated open records requests filed by the Tribune turned up documents detailing the mtDNA program. Apparently, these samples were part of a larger program to build a national, perhaps international, DNA database that could be used to track down missing persons and solve cold cases."

Comments

Someone enlighten me

[FlightTest]

Because the TFA certainly doesn't.

How, exactly, are anonymized blood samples going to used to track down missing persons or solve cold cases, or do anything else that hinges on tying a person to that blood sample? That is assuming you believe the samples were actually anonymized, which there's no way to know for sure.

I'm not defending what was done, but the only real use I can see would be statistical evaluation. Possibly a good idea, but the implementation (doing it without consent) is clearly wrong.

Re:Someone enlighten me

[Xamusk]

Probably, "anonymized" to them really means that only the person's name was erased. Yet, as most slashdotters know, there are other ways to track a person from other information. For example, the name may be gone, but if the hospital and birth date are yet in the database, it narrows down considerably the number of people being searched. And, as we all know, the db probably will be abused at some time.

Re:Someone enlighten me

[pla]

How, exactly, are anonymized blood samples going to used to track down missing persons or solve cold cases, or do anything else that hinges on tying a person to that blood sample?

TFA actually refers to two separate programs.

The first, and more chilling of the two, Texas hospitals have sent all newborn blood samples for entry into a DNA database since 2003. The second part, which came to light only because of the suit by parents over the first point, involves 800 anonymous samples for an mtDNA database. That part sounds reasonably innocuous (if still lacking in prior consent).


So, how "should" we feel about this? We should feel pretty damned pissed, and each and every one of us should flood our states, towns, and local hospitals with FOIA requests about possible variants of similar programs in our own areas. We should also (but of course won't) riot in the streets demanding the immediate destruction of this database and all samples taken, as well as a goddamned constitutional amendment explicitly granting us "genetic privacy" rights from both government and private (aka commercial) entities.

Instead, this will just fade from view without anyone really noticing or caring, and will expand until it contains each and every human in the country (and eventually, on the planet). And we'll still fail to stop illegal immigration or terrorist attacks, but you can bet your last penny it'll affect your ability to get loans and various types of insurance.

"Oh, sorry, your Genetic Rating (tm) says you probably won't live long enough to pay us back, can't help you with that new car".

Re:pardon my ignorance

[Sad Loser]

the reason to harvest cord blood rather than anything else is because it is free, easy to collect, and has more than average stem cells.

if in the future one of these people needs a bone marrow transplant, they have a perfect match. Research causes are also in there, but I very much doubt the legal/forensic side of things was considered in all this, and usually medical databases are quite thoroughly tied down in this respect.

Re:not unusual, no privacy or property issue

[shadowbearer]

Typically if they take a tissue sample from you at the hospital, it belongs to them

  No. It "belongs" to the being it was taken from. The being it was taken from has first "copyright"/"patent"/"trademark" to it (add whatever terms the lawyers feel necessary, here)

      It does not matter who sequenced it first. It does not matter whether it has unique properties. It does not matter who it was taken from, whether they consented to it, or not.

  No corporation, government, nor any other entity, can own anything about me that I do not give explicitly give them rights to.

  Legislators can pontificate as much as they want to, there are things that we - as human beings - won't give up. This is one of them. History proves that.

  If those in power wish to [continue] to do so, they will suffer the same fate as their predecessors have; they will eventually be replaced.

  Fools.

SB

Re:not unusual, no privacy or property issue

[Jedi Alec]

You own your body. That is perhaps the single most foundational law of all laws ever written. (Countless laws use it as a base. E.g. all basic rights!)

Yet the debate about whether or not a woman has the right to take chemicals to induce her body to flush a mass of cells that is forming inside her continues unabated.