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DNA Testing at Birth
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Do you think it's a good idea to take a sample of a baby's blood at soon as they are born to keep it on a huge database for purposes such as criminal investigations and tissue matching.
So in a generation's time if a drop of blood or hair with the root attached is found at a crime scene the police will be able to tell who the suspect was straight away and help find a potential rapist or serial killer much faster then before and before they have the chance to harm someone else?
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If you were in need of rare blood type - you'd be matched up with potenital millions of more people then ever before who would be suitable donors?
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To help profile you so that doctors in the future can warn you if you might be likely to develop a certain type of cancer or other disease?
So in a generation's time if a drop of blood or hair with the root attached is found at a crime scene the police will be able to tell who the suspect was straight away and help find a potential rapist or serial killer much faster then before and before they have the chance to harm someone else?
or
If you were in need of rare blood type - you'd be matched up with potenital millions of more people then ever before who would be suitable donors?
or
To help profile you so that doctors in the future can warn you if you might be likely to develop a certain type of cancer or other disease?
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Comments
This is not true. Plenty of people believe that holding DNA is not a good thing. The current legal system assumes innocence. Therefore one should not have to offer DNA to show that they were not some place. This is effectively what holding DNA samples does. I'm not saying that I agree with this argument, but it is not only guilty people who think it is bad.
This would worry me to be honest. How many times have there been mix up with results, mix up of peoples notes etc. what would happen if they got peoples DNA mixed up ?
Good idea I think, but in theory I dont think it would work.
I'd think for example if it were a police investigation and you'd had you DNA collect 20 years ago when you were born you'd be retested when you name came up on the police computer. And in 20 years time the techniques will surely have only gotten better too.
They do DNA testing of whole comminites sometimes when there is a man hunt for a killer on the lose to rule out people.
I just saw this thing on TV about a guy that had the police scare him into confessing to a crime he did not commit - he then spent 10 years in prison until DNA evidence proved he was innocent.
My major worry would be companies like Bupa and insurance companies wanting to get their hands on the info so as not to give medical cover to people - but laws could be passed to prevent this from happening - but I reckon if you could spot medical problem earlier you'd save the governement a fortune and save many lives and lots of suffering too.
Why do you think its a good idea?
I can see why the privacy issue is a problem though, and also how it would be easy to make mistakes. I'm not sure I agree with the crime solving side of it, but I think it could be beneficial to medicine.
i am kind of angry as my house was brokin into and the car was stolen not to long ago along with my friends car aswell.:mad:
I think if there was a database of people's DNA code kept on record it would act as a deterant to stop young people turning to crime in the first place because they'd know it would be that much easier to be caught.
As long as the system was kept offline (i.e. not accessable to hacker over the internet) or available to insurance companies then I'd be fairly happy. I kind of see it like CCTV cameras - Britain has more CCTV cameras per head then any other country in the world .. they record your movements but generally I feel safer in highstreets that have them. I'm sure they do something to prevent crime and if crime happens then they help catch people who did it. (like in crime watch)
As for the donnor aspect of this I don't believe having a large data base will help, unless all of the people in the data base have agreed to give up their kidney or blood! (which would be technically impossible if samles were taken at birth)
The idea to use it to profile you in order for doctors to predict possible disease is very likely to be missused by medical insurance companies, who will refuse to provide coverage to those people who could 'possibly' become ill.
I am an advocate of human rights, which includes the right to privacy. Innocent until proven guilty.
I hate cctv it does not make me feel safe, and I have been a victim of violent crime where there was cctv and it did not make a difference to the people who commited the crime, that for half the time they were being filmed! You over estimate the power of deterrents, you would think that the death penalty is enough to stop anyone from commiting murder, yes it would stop me and any other sane person. But people who commit violent crimes are not sane.
So why hand over your right to freedom and privacy for a system which is clearly flawed?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3018504.stm
Go girl.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Just as I oppose ID cards, I will oppose this DNA Database.
I am who I say I am, and I was where I say I was. Prove otherwise.
That it the main tenet of innocent until proven guilty.
A single human hair can be blown for miles, skin is the same, finding a single hair is never proof.
I am also concerned that the medical aspect would get into the hands of the insurance companies, who I believe should only deny insurance on the basis of lifestyle and not those who are simply born with bad genes.
I believe DNA on file will help find treatments, and cures for varying diseases, it'll be easier to locate people with immunities to certain illnesses and to locate possible donors for blood and organs.
OK maybe that is a bit far fetched, but it would be too much of an invasion of privacy.
I'm also against ID cards, unless they're for Asylum seekers, so that immigration would know the difference between those real refugees and those that are illegal immigrants.
The story about the bac drive that raped a girl 14 years ago and was recently caught when he was tested recently and had his sample matched on the national DNA database.
Nope.
CCTV, DNA Testing, Vehicle tracking... when will it stop?