Newborns’ DNA Routinely Harvested For Government Bio Banks

Genes are considered the property of big brother
Steve Watson
Infowars
Feb. 08, 2010

The government is harvesting samples of DNA from every newborn child in the country, storing them in monolithic bio banks and providing them to outside researchers and other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, all without the consent or knowledge of parents.

It sounds like the stuff of dystopian nightmare, and it is, but it is also reality.

At Infowars we have been tracking and reporting the story for years, now it has hit the headlines once again this week with CNN probing the issue via the case of Isabel Brown (pictured) from Florida.

Isabel’s mother Annie Brown was confused when she was told by health authorities that her daughter had a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis, because she had never consented for genetic testing to be carried out on her child.

Ms Brown then learned that genetic testing of all newborn babies is routine in every state, and that DNA is kept indefinitely by the government, without parents ever knowing.

“We were appalled when we found out,” says Brown, who’s a registered nurse. “Why do they need to store my baby’s DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later on, or get health insurance.”

Watch CNN’s report:

In April 2008, President Bush signed into law a bill which formerly announced the process that the federal government has been engaged in for years, screening the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months of birth.

Described as a “national contingency plan” the justification for the law S. 1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is that it represents preparation for any sort of “public health emergency.”

The bill states that the federal government should “continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening” and “maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the internet and is updated at least quarterly”.

Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests, both by the government and by researchers chosen to handle the DNA samples and the information that goes with them.

Read the full bill here.

Many have described the law as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database, like the one in the UK.

In 2006 and 2007, then, Senator Obama, filed legislation that would create a national DNA database. The same bill was filed by Sen. Patrick Kennedy in 2008. The bills required parental consent, but all three died in the Senate.

Health care expert and prominent critic of DNA screening, Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care produced a detailed analysis (PDF) of the DNA law in which she warns that it represents the first program of populationwide genetic testing.

Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:

Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study “secondary conditions” of individuals and their families.
Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.

“Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research,” Brase writes. “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research.”

“The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research. It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research.”

The government may outsource genetic research to private companies, who may manipulate, alter or splice the DNA in any way they see fit. Hundreds of samples have already been used in government comissioned studies.

Such information represents a goldmine to employers, insurance companies, medical institutions, and big pharma.

Under such conditions we are faced with the prospect of a society that is literally the mirror image of the nightmarish vision outlined by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 novel Brave New World, where individuals are categorized in a social hierarchy according to their genetic traits.

DNA of newborns has already been harvested, tested, stored and experimented with nationwide.

The National Conference of State Legislatures lists for all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the various statutes or regulatory provisions under which newborns’ DNA is already being collected.

In addition, all 50 states are now routinely providing these results to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007 merely established this practice within the law.

The History Channel recently featured a report on the issue as part of its Eternal Life program. Here is the segment followed by a local news report on the matter from kxan Austin:

Here is a more detailed report from kxan news, aired last November:

In certain states, authorities are required to destroy a child’s DNA sample if a parent demands they do so. Ludicrously, parents wishing to do this must fill in a form like this one from Texas or this one from Minnesota.

In other states, parents have to put their request in writing, however, there is no legal requirement for states to destroy the samples.

The practice of taking DNA from all newborns is not limited to the U.S.

In the UK, a similar DNA harvesting program was rejected in 2005 by The Human Genetics Commission, who cited cost and ethical problems in a report to government ministers.

However, DNA profiling of all newborn babies has since been called for by lawmakers and senior police officers.

In December 2009, a Dublin hospital was revealed to have built a secret database containing the DNA of almost every person born in the country since 1984 without their knowledge.

The retention of newborn screening cards has also caused controversy in Australia and New Zealand where the DNA has been used by police to help to solve crimes. A sample in New Zealand was used to identify the father of a dead child against the wishes of the mother.

There is no doubt that the practice is in operation all over the developed world.

Unless this practice is widely exposed and publicized, we could find ourselves sleepwalking towards the basis for a new eugenics movement, the practice of “perfecting” the human race through genetic manipulation, previously endorsed by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, and toyed with by the likes of Adolf Hitler.