Texas Department of Health to destroy newborn bloodspots to settle parent lawsuit

(St. Paul/Minneapolis) - Texas parents have won a major victory for genetic privacy rights, according to the Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC) which has helped parents file a similar lawsuit in Minnesota.

In response to today's news that Texas health officials will destroy all newborn bloodspots collected before May 27, 2009 without parent consent to settle a lawsuit, Twila Brase, president of CCHC, made the following statement:

"The State of Texas has taken first steps to restoring the genetic privacy rights of Texas children. This is a wonderful Christmas present for Texas citizens.

"The Texas Department of Health should never have stored or analyzed the DNA and unique genetic codes of its newborn citizens. It is only right that they destroy the genetic information that they have stored and given to researchers without legal authority or the consent of parents.

"Since Texas is still not actually requiring informed consent for future collection and use, and since other States are also collecting newborn DNA without parent consent, all 50 state legislatures, including Texas, must require state Health Departments to get written fully-informed parent consent prior to the collection, storage, use, analysis and sharing of newborn DNA."