GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: China may be building its massive DNA security database without citizens’ consent

domingo, 24 de febrero de 2019

China may be building its massive DNA security database without citizens’ consent

China may be building its massive DNA security database without citizens’ consent

Bioedge

China may be building its massive DNA security database without citizens’ consent

by Xavier Symons | 24 Feb 2019 |

China’s new high tech social credit system has garnered significant media attention in recent months. International observers are concerned by the government's Orwellian attempt to control nearly every aspect of citizens’ lives.

Yet the government’s new security measures go further than a social credit program. State authorities are also developing the world’s biggest DNA database, using samples obtained from a range of social groups from around the country. One function of the DNA database will be to allow police to infer the geographical origin of suspects from DNA found at crime scenes.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch has reported that that police have enormous discretion about whom to collect samples from and that there is little in the way of privacy protection or oversight. Ordinary citizens, who are neither convicted nor under investigation for a crime, can find themselves subjected to requests for blood samples from local authorities, the group said.

Authorities have focused in particular on collecting DNA samples from minority groups such as the Uighur people of Xinjiang province. State media reports stated that almost 36 million samples were obtained in Xinjiang between 2016 and 2017. A report in the New York Times on Friday suggested that some samples were obtained as part of free medical check-ups.

The same article detailed how US biotech company, Thermo Fisher, has sold human identification technology to authorities in Xinjiang. The company has announced this week that it would no longer be selling equipment in the region.

In a statement, the Xinjiang government has denied that it collects DNA samples as part of the free medical checkups. It said the DNA machines that were bought by the Xinjiang authorities were for “internal use”.

It’s hard to think of a more volatile topic than transgender transitions for children entering puberty. The number of kids demanding puberty-blockers so that they can transition to the opposite sex is exploding all over the developed world. It’s a mysterious and poorly understood phenomenon which involves a range of bioethical issues.

Is gender dysphoria really a medical issue at all? Or is it just a waystation on a spectrum of sexualities? How do we decide? Is it ethical to offer treatments which have yet to prove their efficacy? Is it ethical to offer treatments which will have negative side-effects? How can children make decisions which will affect their whole lives without understanding the medical, sexual and psychological implications? There is enough here to fill a library with contending points of view.

But this is far from being a theoretical issue. Children with gender dysphoria are suffering now. Who is to decide how can they be best cared for? A bioethicist writing in the American Journal of Bioethics effectively argues that parents are not the best judges. (See article below.) They are in the same position as loving, well-intentioned parents who want to use herbal remedies for their child’s cancer. Doctors, backed by governments, should decide. The state has to step in to save the child from suffering and even death.

It’s a controversial, even incendiary, point of view. But that is the way the debate is heading. We can expect to hear more, much more, in the future.