genomeboy.com

Some days it still feels like September 12, 2001:

Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults “arrested for” certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership scheduled Tuesday’s debate on the bill–called the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010–using a procedure known as the “suspension calendar” intended to be reserved for non-controversial legislation.

“Suspension of the rules is supposed to be for praising the winner of the NCAA championship or renaming Post Offices,” Harper says. “Things like collecting Americans’ DNA are supposed to be fully debated in Congress.”

(hat tip: Jenny Reardon)

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is back and better than ever…we hope:

The commission’s wider scope will also force some tough choices in deciding priorities, says [George] Annas. “Doctors’ [involvement in] force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo, doctors and torture, and international human-research rules are pressing issues of our day which demand our attention,” he says. Among the other issues he thinks the commission should juggle are new reproductive technologies, an overhaul of informed-consent procedures and — perhaps most immediate — fairer ways to apportion health care. 

To that modest list I’d add achieving peace in the Middle East, ending world hunger, eliminating poverty, curing cancer, and repairing the global economy. I can think of two guys I’d appoint immediately…at least, I think they’re two different guys.

The first big test for GINA? Really?

The DNA test does not reveal an age, but it can reveal whether the player is the son of his claimed parents. Players have been known to find families willing to lend a younger child’s birth certificate so that a player can appear younger.

Miguel Sano, a top prospect in the Dominican Republic, was given DNA tests and a bone-scan procedure to help confirm that he was 16, he said in a telephone interview from his hometown, San Pedro de Macoris.

The DNA tests were conducted on Sano and his parents to determine if he was their son, he said. Sano’s sister underwent the bone scan as well, to help confirm that she was his older sister, and not a younger sibling whose birth certificate was used to falsify Sano’s age.

“In the eyes of baseball, there’s a huge difference between 16 and 19 years old,” said an international scout for a major league team. “It’s night and day. This is a runaway train they’re trying to put a lasso around.”

As ever, youth is wasted on the young. Play them off, son.

A friend alerted me to this Atlantic Monthly podcast  because of Craig Venter’s discussion of genomic testing, which manages both to recycle old platitudes and be self-aggrandizing…all in less than a minute! An equally brief but more powerful viewing experience from the same podcast is Reed Tuckson on the endless health care policy debates.

…The book also reveals that, during spring training in 1999, team doctors revealed to owner George Steinbrenner that Torre had prostate cancer - even before informing the manager himself.

Dr. Shalom Kalnicki, chairman of Radiation Oncology at the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center, says he tries to guide his patients, explaining the importance of peer-reviewed information to help them filter out less reliable advice. He also encourages them to call or e-mail him with questions as they “study their own case.”

“We need to help them sort through it, not discourage the use of information,” he said. “We have to acknowledge that patients do this research. It’s important that instead of fighting against it, that we join them and become their coaches in the process.”

I have tried to keep my big fat pie-hole shut about the ongoing battle over regulation of personal genomics companies and instead ply you all (my seven readers!) with genomic fluff because 1) I selfishly want to save a lot of the corporate personal genomics stuff for my book; 2) plenty of other folks have weighed in; and 3) I keep waiting for the curtain to fall on this theater of the absurd. Apparently the latter is not going to happen anytime soon:

Ann Willey, director of the Office of Laboratory Policy for New York State, who is both a board-certified geneticist and a lawyer, spoke last week at CHI’s Beyond Genome conference in San Francisco. “I think of this genomic profiling paradigm…as really a star,” Willey said. “By the time we get done regulating it…we’re going to have to force it into a globe and shear off some of its sparkling and promising aspects.”

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Willey said regulation of these companies could potentially fall into several different categories, including the practice of medicine, or a laboratory, or information management. “The jury is out, we haven’t decided what it is,” said Willey. “Once we make it a duck, it better quack like a duck. No matter what box we put it in, we put constraints on it… But we don’t want to leave them in no box, because we have no oversight.” Willey said her office regularly sends warning letters to laboratory testing facilities, from tests on human genes to microbial flora. “We’re not picking on this [genome analysis] industry. We really want to make this work.

“But I’m from the government and I can’t always help.”

Hoo wee! Really fills one with confidence, don’t it? I only wish I’d stuck around Beyond Genome long enough to see the show.