From the Texas Tribune:
DNA Deception
“When state health officials were sued last year for storing infant blood samples without parental consent, they said it was for medical research into birth defects, childhood cancer and environmental toxins. They never said they were turning over hundreds of dried blood samples to the federal government to help build a vast DNA database — a forensics tool designed to identify missing persons and crack cold cases.
A Texas Tribune review of nine years’ worth of e-mails and internal documents on the Department of State Health Services’ newborn blood screening program reveals the transfer of hundreds of infant blood spots to an Armed Forces lab to build a national and, someday, international mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) registry. The records, released after the state agreed in December to destroy more than 5 million infant blood spots, also show an effort to limit the public’s knowledge of aspects of the newborn blood program, and to manage the debate around it. But the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit never saw them, because the state settled the case so quickly that it never reached the discovery phase.
(snip)
Over the last several years, researchers have requested Texas baby blood spots for a variety of medical projects: to study the gene involved in club foot, to inspect the DNA of infants who develop childhood cancer, to examine prenatal lead exposure. Those are the projects state health officials have touted repeatedly before lawmakers and critics. But the least publicized of these research projects is arguably the most interesting. Between 2003 and 2007, the state gave 800 de-identified blood samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) to help create a national mtDNA database.
(snip)
Eventually, research proposals indicate, federal officials hoped to be able to share this data worldwide, “for international law enforcement and investigation in the context of homeland security and anti-terrorism efforts.”
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This is some creepy ass shit. The way this program was hidden shows there’s more going on than just “innocent medical research”. The bit about using this data to one day enforce “anti-terrorism efforts” certainly makes my paranoia flare up. Just a few weeks ago I blogged about a Dallas DNA collection database for prostitutes and now this? What the hell is going on in Texas?!?
Posted by Vixen as News at 11:39 PM CST