Aggregated News
Annie Brown says she’s no radical, and acknowledges that in some ways she may be overreacting.
“But I feel I have to make a stand,” the Mankato registered nurse says of a genetic privacy issue that nationwide has taken on a Big Brother-is-watching dynamic.
A month after Brown and husband Jared’s daughter Isabel was born last year, their pediatrician met with them to discuss a concern he had about the girl’s gene sample.
The couple wondered how the doctor even knew about their daughter’s genes because they’d never consented to genetic testing.
They learned U.S. newborns’ blood is routinely screened for genetic diseases, and that testing is mandated by the government, often without parents’ consent.
Moreover, in many states — including Florida, where Isabel was born — babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely in government labs.
Brown says she was appalled, not only because parental consent was being routinely bypassed but that a person’s genetic blueprint might be possessed by the government for perpetuity.
“As a nurse I’ve been trained that you have to be very cautious of informing people what...
“But I feel I have to make a stand,” the Mankato registered nurse says of a genetic privacy issue that nationwide has taken on a Big Brother-is-watching dynamic.
A month after Brown and husband Jared’s daughter Isabel was born last year, their pediatrician met with them to discuss a concern he had about the girl’s gene sample.
The couple wondered how the doctor even knew about their daughter’s genes because they’d never consented to genetic testing.
They learned U.S. newborns’ blood is routinely screened for genetic diseases, and that testing is mandated by the government, often without parents’ consent.
Moreover, in many states — including Florida, where Isabel was born — babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely in government labs.
Brown says she was appalled, not only because parental consent was being routinely bypassed but that a person’s genetic blueprint might be possessed by the government for perpetuity.
“As a nurse I’ve been trained that you have to be very cautious of informing people what...
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