Good morning, and happy Monday! Andrew Joseph here filling in for Megan for the week. You can reach me at andrew.joseph@statnews.com.
Should the U.S. have a universal DNA database?
Recent examples of authorities arresting suspects by using genomic databases, including in the infamous Golden State Killer case, have raised questions about what kind of access law enforcement has and should have to these databases. In a new essay in the journal Science, a group of genetic privacy experts from Vanderbilt proposes creating a universal forensic DNA database, which would contain some genetic information from everyone in a society. It sounds controversial, the authors acknowledge. But they point to the fact that state and federal databases already have the genetic profiles of 16.5 million people who have been arrested and that other databases, from research projects or consumer genetics companies, are linked to a large portion of the country through family connections, which is how the recent arrests were made. A well-managed universal database would be less discriminatory and haphazard than the current system, the experts argue.
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