Wow, it is nice to know that the Texas State government is taking newborn babies' blood to build some national DNA database. Of course, the government is doing it without parental consent. Yet another example of ridiculousness and the trampling of individual rights.
Source: The Texas Tribune
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 Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) scientists, in conjunction with the research branch of the Justice Department, approached Texas in a $1.9 million effort to expand the country’s mtDNA database — part of the President’s DNA Initiative launched under George W. Bush. The researchers wanted “anonymous and maternally unrelated” blood samples from Texas Caucasians, African-Americans and Asians — and from Hispanics and Native Americans in particular — to round out their genetic record.
Source: The Texas Tribune
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