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Location: Blogs Dan's Blog |
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| Posted by: Dan McGrath |
5/20/2008 |
 Word has just been received from the Secretary of State's office that Governor Pawlenty has vetoed SF3138, the "DNA Warehouse" bill. This bill would have removed the parental informed consent requirement in current privacy law, thereby allowing health officials to take blood from newborns without permission from the parents. The blood taken could further have been stored for genetic study, experimentation and even dissemination without permission. Suspected drunk drivers are afforded more rights with their blood than babies had this proposal become law.
Now that the governor has vetoed this rights-infringing bill, the Minnesota Department of Health will be forced to comply with a court order halting their decade-old practice of surreptitiously collecting and storing DNA samples of newborns without parental consent or even knowledge.
TAKE ACTION: Call Governor Pawlenty to thank him for his veto. |
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Re: A Victory for Parental Rights, Genetic Privacy |
By John From Lino Lakes on
5/23/2008 |
| This is truely great news but it leads me to still ask, has my children's DNA been sampled, logged and stored? My first was born in 2001 and my triplets born in 2003. From the sounds of the above article the MN Dept of Health HAS been (illegally) collecting this stuff w/o our consent for a long time. Can we have the information expunged from records? Halting the practice is one thing but what about all those people that have had their privacy violated already? |
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Re: A Victory for Parental Rights, Genetic Privacy |
By dan.mcgrath on
5/23/2008 |
| It's almost a certainty that the MDH has blood samples of your children. There is a process to have those samples destroyed. A form is available from CCHC here: http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/nbsdisposeJuly2007.pdf |
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